I've had and still have brass and copper fittings in cooling systems on
several cars since the '70s.  Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.   All
modern coolants protect against corrosion of dissimilar metals, just change
it at the recommended interval and fuggetaboudit.

Stuart
'85 Westy with brass Tee for coolant draining and flushing.   Had one on my
'84 for 10 years.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Derek Drew
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2012 5:27 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Brass Coolant Connectors = Failure?

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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