[Mk2] [Turbo] L@@K! FOUND WHERE MY COOLANT LEAK IS!!!

[dervbas]

Some of you may remember my post on mr2oc.co.uk regarding my constantly overheating rev1 turbo around the same time "Jez" was experiencing similar problems.

Well after borrowing a garage lift I managed the stand under the car and upon pressurising the whole cooling system to around 10psi noticed water dripping from just after the turbo heat shield - behind the petrol tank!

Well, thanks to reading Peter's "Know Ur Two" topic on the site, I am quite confident I am another sufferer of the heater pipes from hell. The pipes go behind the heat shield and down to the floor of the car, and if you can get underneath like I did you can trace them to the petrol tank and they go to the front of the car above the petrol tank! YES, above!

Here is the offending pipe that has caused me so much heartache and breaking down on cold nights in the rain for well over a year :eeek: ...



You can clearly see the amount of corrosion around the bracket and where the crack will be.

Solution:
I'm going to see if I can drop the petrol tank out and cut away the offending bit of pipe and replace with a bit of silicon hose.

At present, I have bypassed the heater pipes completely by re-routing the first pipe back to the second pipe inlet, in a kind of "U" shape so there's still circulation but no heaters, lol!

I really hope this helps you ppl!

[misterT]

I had this prob on mine a while back.

Found a thread on here somewhere that explained how to bypass both of these standard heater pipes with new heater hose!

From memory, i bought around 20 meters of 19mm heater hose, and just ran two lengths, the length of the car, connecting to the front heater pipes in the frunk and the water inlet/outlets in the engine compartment. Leaving the original rusty metal pipes redundant.

Tucked them in nice and neatly under the car, and Bobs your uncle.

Only problem i've ever had is the hose that connects to the water outlet in the engine compartment, down by the turbo, was slightly smaller than 19mm, and ended up kinking because of the angle it was at.

I resolved this by cutting the hose where the kink was and fitting a "L" shaped hose connector that was 19mm one end and 16mm the other. Then just ran about a foot of 16mm hose straight to the water outlet.

No problems since. No dropping the tank. No worries.

Dean.

[SySanguinary]

Mine has been fixed in it's past in exactly the same way as above... The original pipes are still there and two lengths of flexible hose have been run below the fuel tank to the front of the car. Works a treat.

[lower]

The how to article on replacing the heater pipes is in the knowledge base.

I wrote it about 5 years ago