Coolant Hose Failures

[rob0r]

If there's one thing that plagues me the most about my M30 swap is coolant hoses. For some reason I'm splitting hoses like they're going out of fashion and it's worrying every time I drive it. At the moment they are mismatches grabbed from various scrap cars. The obvious answer is "get new hoses", that's fine and all but I'd be buying £150 worth of new hoses from BMW to chop up and make fit:

Top hose to radiator has to be trimmed
Bottom hose to radiator has to be trimmed (E28 hose and radiator)
Hose to the facelift E30 M30 tank has to be cut and joined to the M30 hose
Hoses to heater matrix have to be trimmed

All that trimming of new pipes does concern me. Also as all these pipes are frankensteined it's not like silicon ones can be ordered off the shelf (are E34 M30 ones even available??). I have thought about whether it would be possible to grab all my hoses off the car and send them somewhere to make silicon ones or similar?

Any thoughts or should I go ahead and butcher brand new pipes from BMW

[Bristol_Jer]

Do you think your cooling system is pressurising more than it should? Mine has got into the red on the temp gauge a few times before I fitted my Kenlowe fan but never had issues with hoses splitting, it's done a fair few track days now and it gets really abused!

I've thought about getting some custom hoses made up using mine as a template, but guess you'd need to get a few sets done to make it worth your while, although I've never properly looked into it.

[jimbom30cab]

Alternatively....I could pop a full set in the post to you, although i don't have the e28 down pipe i'm afraid Rob.

[rob0r]

I've had a ton of over heating problems and the car hasn't got "in the red" hot yet but it's been close, actually tell a lie my mate hadn't been paying attention to the temp gauge . That was just before I stopped using the car but I'm pretty sure it's not damaged at the moment.

Thanks for the offer Jim, unless they are brand spanking new I'm not sure it's worth swapping my current ones off. I think it'd be better to replace with new ones or nothing at the moment. I'm hopefully drifting the car this weekend, so trial by fire I guess!

[HairyScreech]

Have the "pipes" made up/fabricated in stainless steel and just use silicon joiners.

[rob0r]

That's a very interesting suggestion...

[uvels]

Set of silicone hoses from ebay for under 100£

[DanThe]

30 year old hoses don't like pressure, as above your best bet is some silicone