All,

Had a minor inconvenience this morning when I went to drive my 1986 951 into work. Coolant was dripping from the drivers side at the radiator. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be coming from the topmost fitting on the left side of the radiator.

I went to tighten this fitting with a 17mm open end and it completely sheared off. It looks to be made of plastic, anyone know why it's plastic? I think it was only hanging on my a thread because I barely turned it. Is this a common failure mode? I've never seen this before. I'm going to look up the P/N but feel free to leave it here if you know what it is. I also might be able to grab one from work if someone could give me the size and thread type?

Any tips on extracting what's left of the broken fitting?

Finally, if this happened to this part, what other brittle nasty plastic fittings should I replace to avoid getting stuck like this again?

Thanks in advance!

 

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/..._pg2.htm#item5

944-106-927-00-M100

 

I did the same thing and replaced it with an equivelant stainless steel fitting from mcmaster carr.

 

Buy two and throw the extra in the glove box. The drain will probably be brittle also.

 

Doug - What were the dimensions (thread pitch, diameter, etc..) of the equivalent fitting that you bought from MCMaster? Need to drive the car this weekend, so getting the exact OEM part in time will be virtually impossible.

Edit - Found your thread:

https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-...-radiator.html

Looks like M12X1.75, thanks!

 

Those plastic parts that screw into the radiator aren't supposed to be tight. If you ever see them leaking, don't tighten them, remove them and seal the threads, e.g. with teflon tape.

 

Yup. My short term fix was to cut the head off an m12x1.75 bolt and then drill a hole through it, I later replaced it with a proper fitting but only for looks, there was nothing wrong with the jerry rigged bolt that was in there other than that it wasnt meant to be in there lol.