VR6 coolant leak near drain plug

[HaydEn]

Should be sweet to drive up with. Meant to be huge this year.

[Ben J]

Yeah I won't recommend driving it long distances like that incase it does break and you're left stranded, but if I was in that situation, I would still be happy enough to drive it, with a nice big bottle of de-mineralised water sitting in the back to top it up if need be. I'd still replace it as soon as you can though, you can buy the plastic crack pipes pretty cheap from the states and really when you think about it, your plastic one has lasted what, 150kkm? Even if you have to replace it again in another 200000km, you could get like 2million kilometers worth of crackpipes for the price of a metal one The extra money would probably be better spent replacing the thermostat housing at the same time, chances are it will start leaking sooner or later otherwise.

I replaced it on my old vr6, was a little fiddly but its not THAT hard, didn't take me all that long at all.

[werd_103]

i just did my crack pipe. you can buy the full plastics kit with or with out thermostat from ecstuning.com. including postage its the best price i could find. the other thing is when you get around the putting it in it helps a lot if you remove the bolts holding the main front metal part that has the bumper and radiator support attached to it as it helps a lot with fitting your hands in there but it doesn't come all the way off you just slide it away a bit. the other thing is after you sand down the flange on the water pump end, put a bit of grease on the crack pipe/o ring that goes in there. i spent half a day trying to get it to fit and was constantly sanding the flange to open it up a little but all i had to do is wack a bit of lube on it and it just slid right in.

[patmould93]

Yeah I've decided I'll definately buy the kit from ECS. I was considering buying the one with the aluminium crack pipe but that's a pretty good point Ben, this one has lasted 170,000km so maybe it's not really necessary. I'll definately do thermostat housing and all the rest of it because I might as well while it's all opened up, and it's pretty cheap anyway. I accidentally cross threaded 2 of the screws for the bumper skin when putting it back on after the radiator and I just can't get them out. Tried sticking a flat blade under the head and levering it up while screwing out, not much else I could do! Any ideas to get it off?

EDIT: I could also put the extra money from getting a plastic rather than aluminium one into a bentley manual which I've been meaning to get for a while!

[werd_103]

ya the manual is really useful. i found a pdf on a file share a while back which is what i use

[Ben J]

Yeah definitely get a Bentley, they're amazing, much better than just reading online DIYs (although these do sometimes have tips and tricks the book might not, so can still be worth reading )

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