Cooling system woes

[tozerman]

I am just in the process of fettling my cooling system including a complete flush through, changing some hoses for silicon ones and fitting a new stainless swirl pot as the old one has some holes and I didn;t want to just repair it.


The main issue I am having is the U shaped hose that goes from the top of the water pump behind the alternator and then to the swirl pot, as you can see it is knackered


I have read several posts on here about about what to do as these are no longer available from Ford. I got some 16mm black silicon hose from rally Design but can't use it as it kinks when I bend it, so I thought I would solve the problem by making a bridging piece out of plumbers pipe.


The problem here is that I think it will be too high and therefore create an airlock, what I think I am going to do (I know some of you have already done so)
is to run a short hose from the water pump direct to the swirl pot and not over the alternator, although it obviously means that if I need to change the fan belt then I will have to remove this hose which would be a pain in the neck on the road side, am I making a rod for my own back or what ?

Cheers.....Tony..

[DJ8226]

Tony, I can't help but someone will be along soon I'm sure. Incidently though I need a new one of these in red to match the rest of mine that I upgraded via ACT. So if we can get a replacement I would be interested be it red or black.

[v8s4me]

I have a V8S swril pot going spare. PM if you're interested. I used copper pipe to make a new H-piece for my heater pipes and it works fine - so far!

[phillpot]

tozerman said:

run a short hose from the water pump direct to the swirl pot and not over the alternator, although it obviously means that if I need to change the fan belt then I will have to remove this hose which would be a pain in the neck on the road side

Thats what I have done and from experience can say its not really a big problem to slip the pipe off thread new belt through and refit. Yes you'll loose a little coolant but chances are if belt goes things will get a little hot before you notice/have chance to pull over and you'll need to top it up anyway.

My belt went "in the middle of knowhere" (probably because I'd mis-fitted the day before and got it on the wrong bottom pulley groove),felt quite smug,it was a nice day, was in no hurry and I'd got a spareand some tools with me but did have to make do with a discarded pop bottle and puddle water to top up !

If you check belt regularly and don't make a silly mistake like me chances of a roadside failure should be fairly slim, imho.

[GreenV8S]

I don't see any problem using copper plumbing fitting to replace bent hoses, as long as the bore is at least as big as the hose it replaces. I have various sections of 8mm, 10mm, 15mm and 22mm copper tube in the fuel and cooling systems now. If you follow the size and shape of the original hose you know that any air lock problem will be no worse than before, and as long as there is sufficient flex in the remaining hose I can't see it making any difference at all. Just make sure that the hoses fit the ends of your copper section well, and have some sort of barbed ends to stop the hoses sliding off. (I find that solder ring joiners work perfectly for this.)

[orange_dodo]

Forgive my ignorance of plumbing matters but is there not some kind of plumbing fitting you could fit to the top of the arch to bleed it from? Something like a Schrader valve would do, then bleeding the system would be a doddle.

As I said though I am no plumber!

[phillpot]

Couple of other thoughts on the subject,when I was shopping around for silicone hoses some suppliers did a re-inforced hose that could be bent but maybe not as sharply as required in this application and of course various pre-formed bends are available but guess would entail a lot of joins ?

orange_dodo said:

is there not some kind of plumbing fitting you could fit to the top of the arch to bleed it from?

Indeed there is, should you think it neccessary, this a is house radiator bleed valve I have used as a car radiator bleed valve, could be soldered into top of pipe ? There again automatic air bleeds are available but tend to stand about three inches high, might need a hole in the bonnet

[tozerman]

I've bit the bullet and done it Mike's(phillpot) way, I'm fed up faffing with it



Cheers.....Tony..