I often fix the coolant pipes from the insert come out by putting one or two
sallow headed metal screws on the sides of it, not too far from the ends so
the hoses can still o over tem.  Tis way they can last indefinitely without
worrying about the insert coming out.
Zoltan
Some of my letters don’t work on my keyboard.  Will to be fixed.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stacy Schneider
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 1:23 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Coolant pipe end repair

    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