after reading an article in kit car magazine i noticed 15mm copper pipe had ben used as a coolant pipe,its rigid,easy to bend (with a pipe bender)and to T into! has anyone on here used it? and can you paint it to a colour of your choice or would it be affected by the heat? what is the finish like once painted and how is it terminated at each end? cheers again.dan.

Yep - my cooling system has copper pipe in a couple of places - plus a few 90-degree elbows, etc.!

A good trick is to soft-solder an olive* onto the end of the copper pipe if you want to attach some hose. Once the pipe's over that and a jubilee clip tightened round it it'll not come off in a hurry. Mine's painted with black Plastikote spray.

* That's a plumbing olive, not a small green fruit...

[Edited on 12/1/10 by David Jenkins]

I've done the radiator in my bathroom with blue Samco

yip sure can


courtesy of Hellfire

Hellfire has done this.
See their site here
Bah beaten to it!

[Edited on 12/1/10 by mistergrumpy]

I did it. 28mm and 22mm pipe with a 15mm tee for the heater. Easy peasy and cheap. I didn't bother with paint.

the finish looks spot on! surely this must be a cost effective way of doing it?
i like it a lot!

I used mine to make up some breather pipes. Cheap as chips.

And I also used some 28mm with soldered olives for my radiator.

Painted the breather pipes (acid etch and plasticote satin as usual!!!)...

i used it to feed the copper header tank from the remote, it was easier than trying to get at the filler on the rad, just soldered it to the original copper header on the cortina rad

This is mine

engine 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MwmDJuOGwU

Yep same here, wished I'd soldered in a drain a the lowest point though.. Copper pipe and OEM rubber hoses for me (cheap as chips and look right, can't stand silicone hoses, to gay!! but I do have one hose in blue as it's the only way I could get the correct size cheaply and quickly..).

You can also polish copper if you like (hassle mind)..

Dan

[Edited on 12/1/10 by Bluemoon]

Copper pipe is perfectly fine for the coolent pipes, I used it to plumb an R1 engine in the MNR when I built it.
I was a bit reluctant to use it at first because these are cars we're building and how many copper fittings do you see when you look under the bonnet of your production car?
You can't beat it though for ease and when it's painted it looks good. I don't think I'd leave it unpainted though.

You can also have copper pipe zincplated and silver passivated.
It comes out looking like it has been chrome plated

Yep, I used copper. I didn't bother with painting it though; Won't make it go faster! I used striegh connectors on the ends, rather than olives, to provide grip for the hoses.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z282/adrianthorp/Picture008-1.jpg

adrian

quote:

---

Originally posted by balidey
I've done the radiator in my bathroom with blue Samco

---

Yep used it on my car - and if you have a good look in B&Q you will find some ready coated with a chrome like finish - looks great in the engine bay

use copper with yorkshire fittings (pre soldered ring inside them. once done polish with wire wool (looks great) or get zinc coated.
you can get chrome plated copper in 2m length which you can bend or solder(file end to be soldered down lightly to reveal copper) but i dont think there are chrome plated yorkshire fittings(could be wrong) so you would have to use chrome plated compression fittings.

I don't think solder will take on the chrome fittings so you'd have to use compression joints.

We had our copper pipes powder coated (pic on page 1) They look as good now as they did when they were first done.

Phil