>
>
> The plastic nipple had fallen right off in my fingers !!!
> Degraded... Dissolved... Crumbled Into Pieces.
> ...Folks, this is on a 90 ! One of the newer busses.
>

When I replaced all my hoses last year, I found a crumbling, broken-off
nipple formerly from a right side coolant manifold pushed about 8 inches
down the heater hose I replaced. It was crudded up with what looked like
stop leak too. No wonder my heater never seemed to have much oomph.
Apparently the manifold had been replaced after just such an incident as
yours, and the rocket scientist who did it just shoved the broken off bit
down farther into the hose and left it there. So yeah, apparently these
things just crumble to dust eventually. Perhaps VW was just being
environmentally conscious and made them fully biodegradable...

--
John Bange
'90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"