Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Went to Autobarn and Burson's thinking they might be able to help me with a heater hose adaptor - a fitting to hook 3/4" heater hose up to 5/8" heater hose. I have one such adaptor, an old one, in my hand right now but it's pretty corroded... so I know they exist.

Anyway... no dice at Burson's. At Autobarn the parts guy got out a box of assorted adaptors which were all made of plastic. I'm more of a metal sort of person for this kind of stuff.

But... I notice there's a lot of plastic on modern cooling systems including radiator tanks and heater taps. So maybe plastic is okay. The fittings the Autobarn guy had were 100% indistinguishable from your garden variety garden hose fittings for watering systems. Maybe a different plastic but looking at them, I doubt it.

So, would you be comfortable using plastic fittings in this application?

I hesitated!

WEe had to replace such a fitting in the Landy, landy didn't have one in the country and was exhorbitantly priced anyway.

Try Purple Pig near where Mountain Hwy intersects Stud Rd. I got the part required from them. A chemical and heat resistant plastic tee and a series of hose barbs that screwed in to the tee to accept my hoses.
They are cheap enough so you could carry a spare just in case.

Also try a good bearing supplier, there's one on Barry St bayswater that had brass versions of what I needed but not quite in large sizes.

I don't like plastic hose fittings, the one on the Landy was perished to the point where I could snap it apart with my fingers, age and constant heat had embrittled. What was scary was when the Landy place told me the thermostat housing was also made of the same plastic and there were none on the country

Cheers

Yes... I just remembered I had a plastic fitting die on the small gravel road off the big gravel road going from King's Canyon back to Alice Springs, it was a tee-piece added for the LPG system. Replaced it with a brass one when I cobbled it all back together and got to Alice Springs.

Bit of a crappy place to have a piece of plastic fail. But it was probably at least ten years old, so it is not like it failed overnight.

Good thinking, I'll try purple pig. At least if they tell me it's the right kind of plastic I'll be able to believe them.

Just buy a couple of brass barb fittings (one male, one female) and screw them together. Only a few $ each.

You can get them from anywhere that sells compressors/tools to tradies. May need to go to pirtek or enzed for larger sizes though. But even pirtek are cheap for these parts.

edit:




Pirtek/enzed call them "hose tails" though - just to be different.

While I'm sure the plastic one is fine, I'm in favour of the brass ones. I have changed everyone to brass everytime I have touched one. Not putting the factory steel ones back in again. Just prefer brass.

BowTieGQ wrote:While I'm sure the plastic one is fine, I'm in favour of the brass ones..

x4teen

If your stuck let me kwow I can get one turned out of Ali

Matt

Ooh. Lightweight racing ones.