Stainless steel coolant pipes

[Sir Brixalot]

I've had a small leak for ages and cant track it down. The pressurized tank isn't emptying or drawing from the top up tank, have to top up a cup or so of coolant every couple of hundred miles, I've changed cap etc. It's not causing any problems at the moment but I'd imagine it will only get worse over time. As I can't find the leak I'm thinking of changing to long coolant pipes to stainless steel. Are there any cons?

[AdrianC]

If you can't find the leak anywhere, are you SURE it's an external leak in the pipes? Not one in the engine internals? Or any of the other pipes, tubes, joints, seals?

Seems a fairly expensive and major "just-in-case" replacement.

[kevtherev]

No issues with stainless
if you are losing coolant, try searching for the leak when it's hot and under pressure.
Or look for the tell tale pink crust.

As Adrian says it seems a big job for a little leak

[Sir Brixalot]

I've been under when its hot and can't see anything or any staining. The engine was rebuilt by Elite six thousand miles ago and is running well, nothing untoward in the oil. It could be overkill but I see my van as a keeper and the standard pipes aren't that cheap.

[AdrianC]

It could be overkill but I see my van as a keeper and the standard pipes aren't that cheap.

No-brainer IF you're replacing the pipes. The question is whether you need to.

If you put the s/s pipes on, and it still loses a cupful of coolant, how p'd off will you be? If the answer is "not much", then goferit.

[Sir Brixalot]

I'll give it another go first. Thinking of getting one of those old fashioned gizmos women used to puff out face powder and work my way along the pipes/joints. Don't even want to think that the leak could be internal

[AdrianC]

I'll give it another go first. Thinking of getting one of those old fashioned gizmos women used to puff out face powder and work my way along the pipes/joints. Don't even want to think that the leak could be internal

Plastic coolant tower?
Radiator with a stone chip?

[weldore]

an interesting thing I saw on another forum was to get a spare coolant cap and silicon an innertube valve section into the top so the valve was sticking out and then use a foot pump to pressure the system to look for leaks


just saying like

[H.Mc]

Ive just fitted the stainless pipes and its a pain.... we had to drop the petrol tank and the pipes arent marked front or rear so it took us a while to work out which one went where!!!! I have to say it looks really neat now and the old ones were rotten so was a well needed upgrade. Good luck Hx

[Sir Brixalot]

My local garage has messed up twice with the breathers and I'm losing a small amount of fuel so need to get the tank down and do it properly when I get a chance. I saw a vid on youtube and changing the pipes does look a bit of a PITA. I bought the van to do a road trip in Europe in the kids summer holidays and the the van has let me down just at the wrong time the last two summers so really trying to get it sorted this year.

The pump idea makes sense. Just binned an old cap, note to self: I MUST STOP BINNING STUFF

[kevtherev]

We didn't have to drop the tank when the brickwerks pipes were fitted, they came in two sections

[300CE]

Double check the connections on the long pipes that run from the front towards the back. I had a very small leak that only appeared after going on a run and the van had got up to temperature. Once the van had cooled down & settled, no leak!

[Ralf85]

We didn't have to drop the tank when the brickwerks pipes were fitted, they came in two sections

Yup agreed. There are so many places for coolant to leak from connections you can see to a leak from a knackered radiator. Also what pipes are on at the moment? I had mild steel ones on before. At the top end of one of the pipes out of sight someone had patched the old pipe. It fell apart after taking it off. Dodgy and a potential disaster.