I would think brass fittings would be good to over 1000 degrees. Brass
guides are pretty standard as valve guides in engine heads, where the
temperatures often exceed event that. Brass fittings are used in
airplanes, trains, automobiles, steam engines, industrial
equipment�everything short of salt-water marine applications�and have
been for for several centuries. Leave it to the internet collective
wisdom to propagate the rumor that brass would fail at 160 degrees,
not all that high above body temperature.

: )

Jim

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Derek Drew <derekdrew@derekmail.com> wrote:
> The information throughout the Internet seems to be that brass barbed
> fittings are good to 160 degrees (at 2XXpsi).
>
> I called Dixon Brass and they said not to use the brass barbed Ts and
> pipe joining fittings for engine coolant where the coolant would go
> over 160 degrees (as it would in a car).
>
> This seems to imply that we cannot use brass in the coolant system,
> at least not the common barbed fittings, almost all of which, where a
> rating is given, are rated to 160F.
>
> So, I called McMaster and they said that you absolutely CAN use brass
> barbed fittings in the coolant system of a vehicle, and said the 160
> degrees rating was a sort of a mistake that keeps getting repeated
> over and over again, but that its source was originally from the
> rating of *hose* that was connected to the brass fittings, but that
> the brass fittings themselves will absolutely stand up to the needs
> of an automotive cooling system (210F?).
>
> Does anyone have any further info or experiences?
>
> Has anyone on this list ever had a FAILURE of a brass coolant system
> barbed fitting?
>
> The reason I ask is that there are some of these fittings in my
> coolant system right now, and I have to decide whether to go dig them
> all out and replace them with OEM VW plastic fittings, or Gates
> plastic hose fittings.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Derek Drew
> Washington DC / New York
> derekdrew@derekmail.com
> Email is best normally but...
> PHONE: 202-966-7907 (Call the number at left normally)
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