Wondering if the crappy brittle plastic water pipe to the coolant recovery reservoir and throttle body heater can be replaced with rubber tubing?

On my last disco, I fabbed metal lines with brake line tubing. Thinking this could be simplified by just using rubber tubing/heater hose.

Anyone tried it? thoughts?

 

Lots of people do replace the plastic hoses with rubber. Honestly, I thought the factory plastic hoses were not too terribly expensive, and it took them 7 years or so to become brittle on my 2003, so I just replaced them with OE.

Another concern I had was how fragile the nipple coming off of the radiator is, and I figured that a molded plastic hose the correct shape that would snap into all of the correct holders in the engine compartment would be safer. If you do decide on bulk rubber hose, just make sure you've routed it in such away it's not putting too much stress on that nipple.... there is a small nipple on the expansion tank too, but the expansion tank is about $40 and 5 minutes to replace, so it might not be as much of a concern..... although I did have that nipple break off once.

 

Radiator nipple will be equally old and brittle and made-outa-margarine. Cut old hose off with razor knife carefully, and squirt a little soap on the new one so it will slide on easily.

 

Great advise! I've broken the nipple off of my expansion tank before trying to pull off the old hose.

 

Nix the plastic crapper hoses, its another LR design snafu. I redid all mine with heater hose tubing.

Every rover Ive seen in salvage or running seems to have a leak repair with heater hose on some part of the TB plastic line or the expansion tank line.

I was fed up with mine when I bumped it and it cracked and shot coolant in my eye.... little SOB...

and for that matter I swapped my rad for a metal one with a brass fitting for the hose. There is only so much LR madness I can take from the 90s lol

 

I use fuel line to replace mine, has worked great for a couple years now.

 

Where'd you find an all metal radiator? Was it a universal??

 

I ended up buying a small diameter 90 degree right angle bent heater hose and cutting it down to fit right at the new throttle body heater I installed. The end of the plastic pipe had broken off in the old rubber hose. It leaked when I fired it up,........................so

then I pulled all the plastic pipe out (I CAREFULLY released the hose clamp at the coolant recovery tank nipple,..........then carefully cut the hose off with a razor blade).

I replaced it all with fuel hose and a couple short sections of heater hose wrapping the fuel line anywhere it touched metal that might cut or abrade it.

Brian

 

It is a Chevy one with similar hose outlets and such aftermarket. You basically take all your measurements and check out a site like jegs and enter measurements for hoses, inlet and outlet, your thickness, and such. I found 68 camaros have similar measurements and rad hoses to the LR while looking, we all know there are a ton of rads for them.

Its really up to you what you want to do, features you want, etc. I just met another forum member who did it so I follow the basic steps he did. My rad was a Northern for 160ish, took some time to fit and its not stock looking but my whole truck needed repair from previous owner patch fixes so I didnt mind jumping in there.