I got a couple of these too with problems. Let us know what happens.
You do not have to separate the case for a fuel line. A pair of tweezers or needle nose will pull the hose out enough that you can cut off the filter and sacrifice a few millimeters .. and then just pull out the rest through the carb side. The hose is just generic 1/4" or something like that and it's a bad design as you probably realized by now. you'd think there would be a grommet or something but the hose just pushes through a hole with no protection.