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catastrophic to me means causing great damage or suffering, such as an engine blow up (just a little fun with semantics)
in my opinion the only reason why it would occur more on track is the higher temperatures (pressure still always remains below 20 psi I believe), although there seems to be just as likely to happen to a garage queen that has been parked. The epoxy used is the problem, it does not stand up to time.
BTW this fitting could easily be reglued using jb weld and then can be addressed at a more convenient time and do the while your in there stuff like clutch coolant hoses, coolant tank etc...
Yes, I figured semantics were at play...
I agree with the comment - BTW this fitting could easily be reglued using jb weld and then can be addressed at a more convenient time and do the while your in there stuff like clutch coolant hoses, coolant tank etc.. - at least, if you have little hands and can get in there!!!
That's what I did to that exact same fitting, I'll weld the rest later. I cleaned both parts completely to remove all the epoxy, wire brushed the inside (female) part, knurled the male part of the fitting, and liberally applied JB weld. Allow to cure for a few days. Hasn't leaked since.
I don't have a picture of the after, but the pipe is straight after the bend, I didn't do it on a lathe either, if that's what you're asking, just used a hand knurling tool and smashed as much texture as I could into it. The material is pretty thin, so be careful. This photo is after I cleaned everything with a wire wheel, just to show the whole piece.
There's not a lot of material to really work on, but even some coarse grit sandpaper should put a good amount of texture on the pipe for the epoxy to hold.
Last edited by nerdtalker; 01-07-2020 at 09:55 PM.
This is the third failure I've seen for this particular pipe location. Are some coolant locations more prone to failure than others?
Yes, there are two or three pipes that are curved. They seem to break loose more then the others but I have seen the four or five straight pipes pop out too.
My 2 cents worth on semantics. It was catastrophic when mine let go, not for me but for the car behind me coming down what is called "the waterfall" at the end of the back straight at Streets of Willow raceway. He did a complete 360 on track and another 180 in the dirt caused by me laying down a pool of coolant. Come to think of it, it was catastrophic for me, specifically my wallet. I had to drop the engine and trans to have all the joints tig welded. Choose your shop/welder carefully as you need a real talent to properly weld such thin material. In addition I recommend you search forums for a list of other things you could/should do while you have the engine out like water pump, plugs, coils etc. as it is like getting free labor. I have never understood the pinning option. It will prevent a catastrophic failure (this time defined as loosing all your coolant almost immediately) but it can not stop slow leaks if the glue fails again in future. Even a slow leak requires an engine drop to fix in most cases.
pinning should involve regluing with jb weld. with new glue and the pins holding the pipes in IMO it should not leak. I would not just put pins in and hope for the best.
My 2 cents worth on semantics. It was catastrophic when mine let go, not for me but for the car behind me coming down what is called "the waterfall" at the end of the back straight at Streets of Willow raceway....
I'll add to this. Someone else's 996TT coolant pipe failure was almost catastrophic for my 993 and at least 3 other cars when it popped on the track. The 996TT limped back to the pits spewing coolant as he had no idea why his car was smoking. Meanwhile all cars directly behind him, including me, ended up spinning off the track and into the infield. One by one we went, miraculously not hitting each other in the grass. I sustained slight front bumper damage from smashing a row of cones.
Come to think of it, this could easily happen on the street also. Your pipe blows around a bend or near an intersection and you pull over thinking "oh well, I'll just get it towed and fixed." Meanwhile traffic coming along can slip on your coolant spill and crash.
I'm not the preachy type. I normally don't give an F what other people do with their cars, but thinking about it now, maybe securing your coolant pipes is your responsibility for safe motoring not just for you, but everyone around you.
When I was on my hunt for a Turbo years ago, I looked at an '01 that was purchased new and almost immediately taken on one of those cross-country drives hitting multiple tracks along the way events. He blew his coolant pipe, exactly and same one as above. Back them Porsche shops had no idea about welding or pinning... They simply cleaned it and JB welded it back in, which worked for the rest of the event and the next 16 years, and no other pipes let go.
Moral of the story? If I had a failure on one of the easy-to-access coolant pipes, I would be very tempted to epoxy repair it with engine-in-place rather than committing to an engine out service. Of course if the engine was out for other reasons, different story.
01-07-2020, 07:04 PM
(just a little fun with semantics)
