Club 80-90 Forums

Do the plastic pipes have an expected lifetime? I ask because of how I lost my coolant today. The complex hose from the upper coolant flange to the plastic pipe slipped off the plastic pipe (not the hose from the thermostat). There was a 1cm length of the plastic pipe left within the rubber hose, and evidence that the plastic pipe had a metal reinforcement within it at the end. Do these pipes have a metal reinforcement to take the compression at the joint, and does corrosion of these then cause a weakness? Do I need to replace?

(Situation probably wasn't helped by having a completely knackered jubilee clip securing the joint - unable to reuse it so made do with three zip ties. Must put spare hose clips in my van spares box...)

Replace them with the stainless steel ones is my recommendation

Ho Hum. Is that a tank out job?

Have a read of this..https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.p ... REAR+PIPES" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh thanks so much! I remember reading that thread at the time, but my memory is just not up to much. My tank was taken out by the garage I used to use just after I bought the van ( good garage, just realised very quickly that I would have to do it all myself if I was to keep the van) so I'll try with tank in-situ. Don't have any help here really.

Your a bit out of the way up there to be sure..

Don't have any help here really.

Use the original spring clips on pipes.

It's easy to remove the tank, so it makes no sense to me to try to replace the pipes with it in (very very difficult).My advice is whip the tank out and do it properly, or cut the plastic ones halfway and just fit the rear halves until you have another reason to remove the tank in the future.

We'll see how it goes and how much time I have. However, my thanks to you all for your advice, it is as always gratefully received and appreciated.

Here's a post from the brickwerks blog showing how they fail...

https://www.brickwerks.co.uk/brickwerks ... ant-pipes/

Mine had done the same but I caught them just before they failed. I took the tank out to do mine, it was fiddly and not that easy but I imagine doing it with the tank in to be just as difficult!

Aye, that's what's happened to mine. Pipes on order from BW. Quite glad there's no frosts just now, pure water in the system till I get the pipes chAnged.