When your pipes blow out on the side of the road , you will see what a bad idea that is . 
       I was building a van on a budget and found some real nice tubes , still white ,not yellowed with perfect non rusted inserts . 
       A year later I did an engine swap and the ends had started to walk out . This was with proper coolant and less then a years time . 
        Getting rid of the plastic is cheap insurance in my book . That includes anything else that us plastic from hose joints to thermostat housings and coolant unions .

                    Jus my .02 

                              Stacy

      Happily Married since 1986 . 

> On Sep 8, 2014, at 12:14, John Goubeaux <john@UCSB.EDU> wrote:
> 
> I'm curious if anyone has had any success with making small repairs on
> the coolant pipe ends ( plastic ones ) using epoxy ? If so what product
> was used ?
> 
> I had a small, almost not visible crack at the end of one of my pipes.
> Coolant was weeping through the crack at times. After pulling the hose
> off I saw the end WAS in good shape, eg the metal insert is NOT coming
> out SO I opted to do a repair with some West Systems 105 epoxy and a
> strip of fiberglass, to buy some time before replacing the pipes
> altogether.
> 
> My understanding is that some epoxy does not always bond well with some
> plastics and there are some other  West products ( epoxy that do ) But I
> used what I had.
> 
> -john