Attachment of water pipes inside bottom tunnel

My first X died when a coolant clamp failed (this was before I understood the need on a new to me car to replace and update subsystems) at night and I didn’t know that the coolant had drained and couldn’t see the cloud of steam.

Young and dumb. I haven’t learned much since but I do know a little more today
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Dom, who makes the stainless water heater (small tubes) pipes? I've seen the large coolant ones but not the two for the heater. I'd like to pass some heater tubes through the tunnel when replacing the larger coolant tubes. Partially for insurance (the heater tubes are the same age and likely the same condition as the coolant tubes) but also it would be nice to get the section of heater hose (through the spare tire well, etc) completely out of the cabin by extending that tube further back (where I live staying cool is a much larger task than staying warm).
Click to expand...

I second that Dr. Jeff! The image says "subito.it" but going there (and using translate plugin) looks like an Italian version of craigslist.

Do tell us where you sourced your pre-bent SS tubes Dom. :) thanks
 
Here is how I made some beads on a fuel filler I modified. It took several passes but it did a reasonable job and only cost a cheap pair of vise grip knock offs.
20150713_073646.jpg
20150713_073728.jpg
20150706_115728.jpg
 
Beading tool made using three chrome steel balls in a housing machined to fit the ID of a 1.25" tube with an internal wedge and 7/8" pressure screw. This was made to bead tubes used on a Miata coolant re-route project. Note the smooth beaded tube end and rounded tube edge.


N1EGCwMmg2NrXH1TrNAprn00s3DK9KnXV_kdn_XJ2kXvmt9lKqSWIIx0XJ_w-gfEmD1M3CTeAvEu5AxvXRdU7F00u931KWtxq-y31MbsHoUP66ZHcMUE8ZUP_AJnEk9CN5SZW8c54y-1LXT0C18o5zjI610NLu0-JpIIR-iImC3aOTe3SOwBBCF7bwdr46C5s3mDdfPZlilmSNxo7oS_4R7H5tYAT_MIxISF_wPvOQPewQ3OIkhH0J3S6cJoR6USxTMPw0xuUpjBvlBcgTgIl_3LFW8l88OX_cuxG8OuogN14xIiMaNZvao6MrCED7tvnQhpoiAhnrZG2aQ8VQbmy4m3fME0LnTjkcGpKpkEYJSefOlcoTp4kReePHBQYZFjdPGOCAPYc88F48Uf60gAoxRN4-hPcYBmywJise1Mw9U7ax7VoV6ZAcv6Tj8IaiMSNav31HSrq3ksK0Dgjsx6GE-r9yjU3ChF34A8HiRSPGat2XJuKOTxLTCid9BmmKqC-fSi-D49hz9QceiMJySTMVS1OEjJ02f_7478RcxbhyvlrphDmsMNgJinuth4N2XGRjkQNMZpfFZdmIiYyhzdfjzlSl8bA9DiFK-svAUhxxEfxu5HX9HnOJZ329nm_YK4gZGxTf_Y9OTTwtorSk7QamfdOCKMnMYv3Cs=w1200-h799-no




Bernice
 
Nice Dr. Jeff. BTW, I couldn't find the Earl's type in 1 3/8" size we need for the large tubes.

I like the exhaust clamp / washer / vice grip tool.
 
Good job Ulix, thanks for posting. Given the relatively low pressure of the cooling system I think your fix might just work. If you are concerned about a failure of the joints you could add a H2O pressure gauge/light. I think you could find many ways to do this - for example use an FI thermostat housing and plug the sensor into the temp sensor hole. That should give you plenty of warning to avoid any damage from overheating due to lack of coolant.
 
Regarding those tube bead rollers from Summit. That was just a quick example I noticed, there may be other sizes from other companies (although 1 3/8 is not a really common size). The price for the larger sizes gets a little high but still much less than the traditional "crank" style tube bead formers.

With the pictured "DIY" vice-grip bead tool, I think it could be improved by using something thicker and with a more rounded profile instead of a washer for the inner die portion. Maybe even three stacked washers, the middle one slightly larger diameter? This should give a smoother, more rounded "hump" to the bead.

As Mike noted, the cooling system pressure is limited by the radiator cap's rating (e.g. 13-15 psi), so it isn't high at all. And the use of these sections of hose as connectors is no different than any cooling system hose. They are very similar to the short 90* hose between the thermostat housing and the water return tube off the back of the water pump. Or consider the matrix of hoses on any modern vehicle. So there really isn't much to be concerned about using these as tube connectors. As mentioned previously, vibration/movement between the two tube ends is the only thing that might accelerate wear of these short hose sections. And steps can be taken to lessen that as well.
Use of hose connectors between sections of metal tubes could also be applied to the installation of the VW (Scirocco) radiator, with both hose fittings on the same end of the rad. Particularly when replacing the tubes at the same time...the layout up front could be reconfigured to better fit the new radiator.
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Regarding those tube bead rollers from Summit. That was just a quick example I noticed, there may be other sizes from other companies (although 1 3/8 is not a really common size). The price for the larger sizes gets a little high but still much less than the traditional "crank" style tube bead formers.

With the pictured "DIY" vice-grip bead tool, I think it could be improved by using something thicker and with a more rounded profile instead of a washer for the inner die portion. Maybe even three stacked washers, the middle one slightly larger diameter? This should give a smoother, more rounded "hump" to the bead.
Click to expand...

Why not weld a large ball bearing, that would give the nice smooth push through, no? Problem with that muffler clamp press is the ridges it is making in the piping, IMO. I'd want a wider seat area. Seems like good clamps would be safer than some of these flaring options :D
 
These chrome steel ball bead rollers have been around for a while, at least a decade. Aircraft spruce has been selling these for at least a decade;
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/topages/ezbeader.php

Problem with these tube beaders, if there is too much clearance between the ID of the tube and header housing (about 0.010" to 0.02", dependent of tube ID and beader body) the three chrome steel balls have a risk of mis-tracking resulting in a overlapping bead that will not seal properly. This problem worsens as the gap between beader body to tube ID increases.

The tube header made for the Miata coolant reroute project has 0.005" clearance between the header housing and tube ID, makes a nice bead due to the tight tolerances. It is very important to use the proper lubricant with any of these rolling tube beaders due to the friction involved, specially when beading aluminum or stainless steel which has a tendency to gall with increasing friction.

History of portable tube beaders goes back to the World War Two era when flex hose to beaded tube connections were common. Parker introduced a beading tool that worked well. It went out of production for a while, then returned due to demand.
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/topages/parkerbead.php

Well, it is only 10 to 15 psi, with such low pressure, why should any of this matter?
That 10-15 psi applied to that area of a typical cooling hose ID is no longer a small amount of force. Then, there is heat of up to and over 200 degrees F on the hose material, add thermal cycling and the actual stress on these connections is a LOT more than it appears. This is precisely why cooling hose joints in these systems and cooling hoses fail.

What bothers me greatly about this discussion, this is precisely the attitude, belief, ideology, orthodoxy that is remarkably prevalent among moto wrencher folks. There have been countless LeMons race teams with precisely these views and they nearly always pay for their harry-a-care, Oh, it ha always worked this way practice only to be hammered by a situation they have created by their own self-deception of, "it will be absolutely fine." On the flip side, there are LeMons teams that are Pro-Racer folks or do real engineering-design work as their day job. These teams bring a moto that appears to be a cobbled up basket case, but for those who see and understand the important details, their Motos run to the limit hour after hour after hour has few if any mechanical problems.


Bernice
 
Hi Bernice,

I greatly enjoy your posts on these technical details.
You show us how to do it the 110% way, which is appropriate since you are a race engineer and need to avoid technical failure at all cost.

But I will not be able to do all the work on my car in this 110% way. I don't have the time or the resources to do it that way, even though I wish I could.
Also, I am not trying to win races. Why do I have this car and continue to work on it and improve it? To have fun, that's it, purely to have fun.
Part of that having fun is getting it finished at some point and driving it.
So I need to cut corners, fall short of that 110% way. I need to decide "what is good enough".
In a way this is harder than going for perfect or even overkill every time, because I have to make decisions every time.
Of course, sometimes something fails because of this and I have to go back and redo it better. No big deal, a learning experience. No race lost.

In this particular case, if I had had the info on better hose clamps earlier, I would have bought a bunch and used them.
I have someone who will try to make the bent end sections of the pipes out of stainless for me, but that will take time. These will have beads.
When they are done, and I install them, I will use better clamps and try to add beads to the straight sections.
Until then, I will just drive like this and check for leaks periodically.
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Dom, who makes the stainless water heater (small tubes) pipes? I've seen the large coolant ones but not the two for the heater. I'd like to pass some heater tubes through the tunnel when replacing the larger coolant tubes. Partially for insurance (the heater tubes are the same age and likely the same condition as the coolant tubes) but also it would be nice to get the section of heater hose (through the spare tire well, etc) completely out of the cabin by extending that tube further back (where I live staying cool is a much larger task than staying warm).
Click to expand...

Hi Dr. Jeff,

I got mine from a guy called Franco who was advertising them on subito.it (an Italian classified site). They cost 200 Euros for the complete set. If anyone is interested, I can pass on his details (although I'm not sure he speaks English, we communicated in Italian). Alternatively, if enough people are interested, I could get a whole bunch shipped to someone in the US who could distribute them from there. Anyway, let me know and I can either put you in contact with him directly or assist with the communications / logistics.

Cheers,
Dom.
 
Thanks Dom. Is that 200 Euro for all of the tubes pictured above (large and small diameter)? That is roughly $240 USD, not bad if it's for all of them. However I think shipping to the US would be very expensive for long size items like this. But it is certainly something to consider. Although I am Italian (grandfather immigrated from Italy to the US), I do not speak Italian. So if at all possible maybe you could try to find out a little more info for us...such as what it would take to get them shipped here, etc? You can send me a message through the forum if you like. Thank you in advance, Jeff
 
These can be reproduced in the US. If some one has one of these heater tubes complete and intact, it can be sent to Brown & Miller racing to be scanned into a CNC tube bender file. Once that is done they can be reproduced as needed in what ever tube material is requested. This is how the main coolant tubes for the exxe happened many years ago.

If interested in taking the next step, contact Rick at Brown & Miller racing. Have a chat with Rick and it will be done.
http://www.bmrs.net

The heater tube appears to be 5/8" - 16mm OD which was pretty common in cars from this era.


Bernice
 
Ulix said:
This job went better than I had hoped.
I bought two length of 1.4m long stainless steel tubing, 35mm OD, 1mm wall thickness (1,5mm works also).
The 1.4m is a little long, more on that later.

Cut the old tubes front and rear with an angle grinder with a fresh cutting wheel (so that you have the full OD of the cutting wheel to work with). Leave about an inch sticking out of the tunnel front and rear.
On my car, although the very ends of the old tubes looked bad with rust holes in them, the rest of the tubes were actually quite sound so I was able to reuse the cut off bent sections. This seems to be the case on most cars.
The rear bent sections will fall right off, the fronts are held on by two brackets.
With a buch of wiggling and twisting, I was able to pull the pipes through the brackts without cutting them. To do this I had to unbolt the brackts holding the track rods to the floor of the car:

View attachment 5146

Then, hit the pipes with a hammer from the rear of the car and they should move out towards the front fairly easily without mushrooming the end of the pipes.
Pull them out the front while twisting with a pair of channel lock pliers.
Peek inside the tunnel and you can see the brackets holding the pipes (in the background of the pic. Yellow stuff is old cavity wax, "wall" in foreground seems to be insulation material, heater pipe is on the left):

View attachment 5147

Dent the floor up a little where the short pieces of connecting hose and their hose clamps will sit to give these some space.
Slide in the new pipes from the front. They slid in super easy on my car:

View attachment 5148

I cleaned the crud out of the bent sections with a pot scrubber on a string:

View attachment 5150

On one tube, I cut off the badly corroded end:

View attachment 5152

I cut the not-so-old rear hoses into sections to connect the pipes:

View attachment 5151

This is what it looks like in the rear, the pipes are too long and I will have to shorten them:

View attachment 5149

This is an easy job if the bent sections can be reused.
If not, you could probably go to a muffler shop and have them bent from new pipe (we don't have muffler shops over here unfortunately).

In summary, I would never remove the bottom tunnel except maybe to repair some bad rust.
Even if you wanted to use the nice stainless reproduction pipes, you could cut them and slide them through and reconnect, maybe even by welding.

After installing these pipes, the method of sliding smaller OD tubing through the old tubing makes no sense to me anymore.
This is much easier and yields a better result.
Click to expand...
Ulix
Nice job with the pictures and explanations. Will probably need them in future

Stoney
 
Rupunzell said:
These can be reproduced in the US. If some one has one of these heater tubes complete and intact, it can be sent to Brown & Miller racing to be scanned into a CNC tube bender file. Once that is done they can be reproduced as needed in what ever tube material is requested. This is how the main coolant tubes for the exxe happened many years ago.

If interested in taking the next step, contact Rick at Brown & Miller racing. Have a chat with Rick and it will be done.
http://www.bmrs.net

The heater tube appears to be 5/8" - 16mm OD which was pretty common in cars from this era.


Bernice
Click to expand...

The photograph at the start of this thread shows the Brown and Miller pipes that I bought years ago. They are stainless with a welded on stainless flange on each end. The fit was good, the drain plugs could have been one to one and one half inches further forward. They are slightly undersized from the stock tubes. The flanges are the size of a stock tube. The cost at that time was in the range of $225 to $250. They came with plastic wrap bundling the two hoses together and I remember the shipping being much cheaper than I expected (I do not remember the amount). I suspect that they will still have the pattern on their cnc tube bender. My link to the web page showing the specific pipes is not available.

I did not get the heater tube from them.

Paul
 
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