Shawn,

some years ago I replaced one of my coolant lines with marine hose. The
leaky steel line was insidious, only noticed the orange coolant drips,
seeping stains when i had the gasoline tank out.

I cut up that line to get it out. Funny thing was that the inside of
that pipe was pristine, really nice and clean... except for a couple of
inches at the engine end and the tiny spot where it was leaking, right
on the seam weld, as if welding inclusion was to blame.

I sized the hose so that it would slip over the rad metal connection.
Rad connection has a bead on it, stock set-up has short length of
rubber hose between steel line and rad. New hose makes that short
section redundant.

At engine end I used a hose barb to connect.

But the problem with this hose size is that the OD is such that I
couldn't install it exactly along the original route, but that's no big
deal.

So why not replace entire line with rubber?

Alistair

'82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/

On 31-Oct-05, at 7:17 AM, Shawn Wright wrote:

The steel coolant lines on my '82 diesel Westy had the typical rust in
the
last 18" of pipe, so I cut this out and replaced with marine
coolant/exhaust
hose, sized to fit over the steel pipe. For now, I have double clamped
each joint, as they are prone to slipping, since there is no 'flare' on
the
pipe where it was cut. Now I have a friend facing the same issue no
their
'85.
Ideas that have come up so far as: 1) welding a bead around the pipe to
simulate the stock flare. 2) Buying the expensive tool to create the
flare in
the pipe (way too expensive!).

Any other ideas? The drawback with welding is having to remove the
whole length of pipe (and presumably the fuel tank as well). Unless I
can
bend a wire around the end of the pipe and just tack it in place in a
few
spots with the pipe installed...

In both vans, the pipes appear pristine except for the rearmost 18", so
replacing the whole lot seems overkill. But maybe 1.5" hose the whole
way is a better choice long term? The marine hose I used is much larger
(very thick), so I don't know if it will fit in some of the tight spots.

Ideas welcome...

Shawn Wright
http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/~swright
'85 Jetta D
'88 Westy 1.6TD 5 speed
  (see progress at http://members.shaw.ca/vwdiesels)
'82 Diesel Westy