Date:         Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:20:49 -0400
Reply-To:     Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject:      Looooong Coolant Pipes part 2 (The rest of the story)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

After lunch went back out to finish installing the long plastic coolant
pipes.  I asked my father, who works with plastic piping all the time as he
is a contractor, what he thought that the tubes were made out of.  He said
he thought they were PVC.  When I asked him for a more specific name he
responded that when you go to buy piping they have long, chemical names for
the pipes because it sounds better than just saying "plastic":)

I think my job would have been finished in less than an hour if I had just
replaced the pipes.  They went back in pretty easy and I spent about 45 mins
putting them back in and clamping and tie wrapping everything back together.
However I could not go the easy way.  My '91 has one of those plastic
coolant distributors on the passenger side right behind the firewall and it
has never been replaced.  I have had enough emergency calls from customers
who have had this part burst apart on them to know that this is a good part
to replace just for PM's sake.  Unfortunately it is located in a most
inconvenient area and I spent almost a full hour just removing and replacing
this little gem.

Pipes are all back in place and the van seems to be working fine again.  I
would say that the only tubes you could replace with the gas tank in place
would be these plastic ones from the 86-91 van.  The older metal tubes are
longer and more rigid and I don't think that they would come out as easy.

On looking over the pipes, one of them actually completely failed on one end
(metal end came out) and was failing on the other end (metal end breaking
loose of plastic).  The other pipe seemed fine on both ends.  It makes me
wonder if that one pipe was just defective from the start.

In my opinion it was worth while for me to buy the dealer pipes.  My van is
a daily driver and I can't afford down time.  If you go this way this job
should only take you four hours at the most.  Other ways may work too, but I
am sure that they are going to take longer as experimenting always does.
Hope this helps some folks.



Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
http://www.vanagain.com
Phone: (856)-327-4936
Fax: (856)-327-2242