Make your own oil lines?

davis911s · davis911s's Garage

OK I know someone here done this. And either failed or succeeded. Is it possible to make, or have a shop make new oil lines to go from the thermostat to the front cooler? I can re-use the fittings I assume (if they come off) But what material can be used and what diameter (inside)? I know the factory ones are brass. But that might be hard to find in the proper size, especially here in Canada

Shawn

MIK911 · 06-06-2002, 02:34 PM

I've heard one can use washing machine water hoses, avail at Home Depot. It's supposedly the proper size hose. Anyone ever try this?

ErVikingo · 06-06-2002, 02:39 PM

There are many options, if you want to stay with solid lines, Elephant's finned lines look interesting. You can also get braided line and make your own "flexible" lines. Personally, I'd go with rigid lines for safety since they are exposed.

On one of the racecars, we used flexible but they were routed inside the passenger compartment. On my other race car, we use flexible in the front to hook up from the end of the rigid lines to the oil coolers.

With the temps you are running and the exposed nature of the install, I'd stay away from washer lines.

Hope this helps,

CamB · CamB's Garage

I have had a set made up. The line is brass and 19mm ID (I think). After very careful measurements, my mechanic took the brass line to a place which bends the pipe. Apparently it took a lot of "annealing" (a new word for me, which apparently means "heating up a lot") and they were bent.

It is cheap. Line was about US$30 and bends US$5 each.

Cam

Bill Verburg · Bill Verburg's Garage

I once saw a set made from 3/4" K copper tube.

jclc · 06-06-2002, 05:01 PM

Shawn,
Its very do-able if you can find the end fittings (or get a junked line with good fittings and cut them off) and have a tube bender.

Here in the States, 3/4" copper heavy-wall, the type used for commercial and house plumbing, is just about identical in diameters to the original brass tubing used by Porsche.

I bought a complete, but very beat up, Carrera external cooler system from a junkyard to add cooling to my 74 911. Both rigid lines to the cooling loop were seriously smooshed, so I cut out the bad sections on both lines and replaced with 3/4" copper heavy-wall tube from Home Depot, a retail store in California.

When I was all done, I had to splice several places and it would have been a lot easier to just scrap the brass lines, cut off and use the end fittings, and bend up a single length of copper tube. The copper is much easier to work than brass, and if you buy or borrow a tube bender the bends are easy to make.

I used an oversize 3/4" splice piece (also from Home Depot) at each joint to join the original 3/4" brass tube to the 3/4" copper tube. Connections were made using silver solder (it has about a 425F melting point) with a propane torch. I used a two-diameter overlap at every joint. Silver solder and flux were from Home Depot. (Before doing this, I tried to braze the splices using oxyacetylene and braze rod, results were terrible because the brass melting point was nearly same as the braze rod).

Total investment was about $30 for solder, tube, and splice pieces. If I had bought a tube bender it would have been about $40 additional.

Fix has been in operation for about 1000 miles now, works great with no leaks so far. I often wondered why Porsche used brass instead of copper, brass tube is miserable to work with. (I think the reason is brass is cheaper, anybody know?)

island911 · 06-06-2002, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jclc
. . .I often wondered why Porsche used brass instead of copper, brass tube is miserable to work with. (I think the reason is brass is cheaper, anybody know?)

brass is a copper alloy, and is much stiffer. . .making it less squishable (a technical term

) and "miserable to work with."

Kurt B · 06-06-2002, 06:32 PM

Hey, how would you weld the ends on if you got your own pipe? What kinda wire would you put in the mig welder?

Thanks. I gotta fix mine this weekend. It's the number one priority esp with Thom Bombadil bragging about his oil cooler project--apparently working so well, he can fire his air conditioning and just blow air throw the front cooler! (bastard!)