Silicon Hose kits for VR6 from Roose Motorsport

[Stonejag 10]

No, sorry. I'll ask next time we speak.

 

---------- Post added at 6:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 6:47 PM ----------

 

(That was to Craig BTW!)

 

VR6Pete: no firm pricing yet but I'm expecting around £250 before discount.

[Stonejag 10]

The hose from the crack pipe to auxiliary pump to bottom of coolant bottle is the one missing

 

He's right you know and I don't have a clue where that's disapeared to :(

Luckily Paul is more on the ball than I am and pointed out you were both wrong! The hose you thought was missing is the one labelled 'water pump hose 2' - it's slightly different to the Golf one (the feed from the expansion tank is smaller) but it was definitely in there. The only reason the Samco kit has 9 hoses is because they include one to feed the PCV hose straight into your inlet, and unless you fit a catch can you don't want one of those as it will spray oil all over your inlet and throttle body and clog them up :) So, as I said at the beginning, we're getting 8 hoses. Well done for confusing me :lol:

 

The tooling should be ready for the first set to be made on Monday and after they've worked out how much silicone it takes for a kit they'll let me know the prices.

 

Will look forward to costs, any idea how long the 15% discount will be on for?

Paul says 1 month.

 

Stone

[robo22sri 10]

So are we getting the little S shaped one that goes from the inlet to crank case breather?

 

Cheers Rob

[Stonejag 10]

That's the PCV one, so no. I've updated the first post to show exactly what we're getting. The vast majority of us are running unmodified ODB1 engines so there's no point in us having it, it just makes the kit more expensive. If you do want one, simply ask Roose for it! It's the top-centre hose on the pic of the Golf VR6 kit.

 

Stone

[robo22sri 10]

The PCV one is an angled one about 200mm long

 

The S shape on is the breather!

 

So we are just getting coolant pipes no breather stuff

Edited March 10, 2012 by robo22sri

[robo22sri 10]

This is the PCV

 

We don't want that because it has a catch tank attached to it

 

We do want the S shaped one because it is the crank case breather hose

 

---------- Post added at 9:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 8:57 PM ----------

 

Wait a min i am getting myself confused that is not the PCV hose! but either way we dont want that hose either because we lose our catch tank on the inlet

[Stonejag 10]

No catch tank on mine!

 

I hate to say it but you've put an awful lot of effort into slagging this off, if you've already got a Samco kit why do you even care? Just leave us to it. I'd quite like to go back to watching the telly if thats alright :shrug:

 

Stone

Edited March 10, 2012 by Stonejag

[robo22sri 10]

Stone stop throwing your toys out your pram!

 

The ISV plastic pipe has a small black box attached to it, when they make it in the kit it doesnt have the small hole to attach the box back on (catch tank)!!!!

 

So do you blank the box?

 

I want a roose hose kit because the samco top hose has broken!! NOT THAT I HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT YOU!

 

I havent slagged it off either

 

---------- Post added at 10:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 9:54 PM ----------

 

Just looked it up it not a catch tank its a damper box!

[beastie4126 0]

Chill gent's pls.

 

Robbo22sri - I had the hose you are refering to in my samco kit and fitted it without issue. The hole is just to support the damper and not to feed into the hose as you probably know. After a few thousand miles on mine the damper hasn't shown any sign of wear or fatigue so should be good as is.

[Stonejag 10]

I'm quite chilled, it's our excitable friend here who's wound himself up. Not only is the ISV damper not a catch tank but my inlet's had that connection between the two blanked off with a blob of sealant which is why there was confusion.

 

Anyway, I'm expecting to find prices out later :) Stay tuned...

[Stonejag 10]

First set of hoses is in the post-cure oven :) They'll come out later today, cool overnight and I should find out prices in the morning once they've been cut to length. Apologies for the delay (think Paul was a bit ambitious on the timings!) but things are still moving forward :thumbleft:

 

Stone

[joebloggsVR69 0]

Thanks for the update :)

[Stonejag 10]

I have prices! Paul has split the kit into two parts because so many people were telling him their radiator hoses were split, so there is one set which is just the top and bottom radiator hoses, and one set for everything else. Off his own initiative he has included the PCV breather so we're back up to the full 9 hoses as in the Samco kit :lol:

 

Pair of radiator hoses: £85 retail, £72.25 with group discount

Remaining 7 hoses: £210 retail, £178.50 with group discount

Clip kit for radiator hoses: £8.50 retail, £7.23 with group discount

Clip kit for accessory hoses: £23 retail, £19.55 with group discount

 

A full set costs £326.50 retail but £277.53 with discount so we all save around £49. These prices include VAT so 20% cheaper than Samco, plus lifetime warranty on all clips and hoses, plus short turnaround makes me a pretty happy camper!

 

Delivery is extra and the special finishes cost 10% more than regular so still an excellent deal. Mine should be here soon so I'll post comparison shots when they turn up :)

 

Thanks to all of you who helped make this happen!

 

Stone

[robo22sri 10]

Did he say how long the price will be valid for?

 

Cheers Rob

[Stonejag 10]

Yes, 1 month. See post #52 :)

[VR6 Lee 0]

v interested, was thinking of replacing all the hoses on mine... if I sell all my bits on classifieds then I will buy

[BILLCOR 1]

Would these be suitable for a 2.8 24v?

Edited March 17, 2012 by BILLCOR

[daves16v 1]

I'm seriously tempted for a set of these, will be a perfect compliment to the mods already done and for stuff I've got in the pipeline.

[Stonejag 10]

I have hoses :dance:

 

Here's how they compare to the OEM ones laid out in approximately the same positions:

 

First impressions are good - they're very flexible, all have four reinforcing plies of polyester and all have a wall thickness of 5mm - even the tiny hoses like the return to the expansion tank on the top hose. A couple are made in more than one piece but are crimped together onto plastic joining pieces with permanent hose clips (the kind with 'ears' you compress) - they're incredibly solid and I can't get them to budge at all. As a bonus to Rob the expansion tank return is made like this so you can ask for it to be made longer if you have a mk4 tank ;) And as an added bonus, they're orange! :D

 

The hose marked 'block to heater matrix' has a slightly different angle on the centre hose to the originals but I'll see if it's an issue when I fit them - the ends can twist apart from each other a fair way so it shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, very happy and looking forward to getting them on!

 

Stone

[beastie4126 0]

Didn't know they did Frankfurter colour :) I'm assuming that these are actually orange to match your calipers?

 

Look good and now we have another option instead of the 3 month wait from Samco if you want something that isn't blue !!

 

Could they do the Tee peices in Ally instead do you think?

 

Make sure you have them fitted for when you drop mine back so I can have a nose :)

[Stonejag 10]

Didn't know they did Frankfurter colour :) I'm assuming that these are actually orange to match your calipers?

Yes, really hard to take photos of though! (even their website ones are a bit off) This one is closer but still a little too light -the real thing is a bit more saturated:

(18V Mk4 Golf before anyone thinks this is a Corrado kit!)

 

Could they do the Tee peices in Ally instead do you think?

They have a range of stainless joining pieces on their website so I don't see why not. You could always uncrimp them and fit your own, they feel pretty indestructible though.

 

Make sure you have them fitted for when you drop mine back so I can have a nose :)

Sure thing, hoping to get them done tomorrow eve :) Incidentally, I think they've sent me too many OEM hoses back - I have an S-bend one which is 021 103 493A (some kind of breather for the AAA engine?) if that rings any bells. If not I'll send it back to them!

Edited March 19, 2012 by Stonejag

[Jon_vr6 1]

Ill be honest they look great BUT im not a fan of the T-piece part of the hose that goes to the expansion tank how come it wasnt made as one whole piece like the samco vr6 ones?

[VR6Pete 0]

I did wonder this myself as it has been bonded together where the smaller pipe from the header take return pipe joins the top hose?

[Stonejag 10]

Short answer is, I don't know. I would guess something to do with getting the tooling out again after curing though? On the bright side, the joining piece is translucent so you can tell if your aux pump is working by watching the coolant pulse past ;)

 

Aaaaanyway, after a series of bloody enormous dramas I've now got my hoses fitted! Short version: It was a massive pain, I was an idiot and it nearly took all night.

 

Long version: StueyB was kind enough to offer me a hand and use of his workshop for fitting them (because he's a legend :thumbleft:) so I got to his unit after work yesterday at about 7pm. We jacked the car up onto some ramps, drained all the (boiling hot :() coolant out over my arm and spent about three hours getting the OEM hoses off. Some of them were stuck fast, some we couldn't get the constant-tension clips off, some had jubilee clips on that had rusted into a solid lump...ended up having to remove engine plastics, leads, coilpack, battery, grille, expansion tank, aux pump, ISV etc etc and it turned into a bit of a mission.

 

side mission starts here:

 

Then my side mission started - because my car's an auto, and the hose kit we've got made is for a manual, the two extra hose branches that run to the auto gearbox cooler weren't there. The gearbox cooler is a really weird bit of German design: here's a pic:

 

Basically the two hoses on the ends are connected into the coolant system, and the cooler is held onto the top of the auto box with a pair of banjo bolts - automatic transmission fluid (ATF) is pumped out of the gearbox up one banjo bolt, goes through the cooler and back into the gearbox through the other bolt. Because it was designed on a Friday afternoon there are all sorts of problems with this - not only are they fragile and tend to break internally (which contaminates your ATF with coolant and then ruins your gearbox) but the basic design doesn't work: ATF has a maximum working temperature of 85ºC before it breaks down, and the coolant system operates at up to 110ºC when working normally, so the ATF is really being heated by the coolant instead of cooled! This is one reason why auto Corrados are rare (and usually buggered) - the 'lifetime' ATF is heated by the stock cooler until it doesn't work any more, the fluid level drops which messes up the shifting and then the gearbox breaks. Since a new one from VW costs about £3k that usually means the car gets scrapped which is why there are none left! So, anyway, I needed to replace the stock cooler because it's crap and there is nowhere to hook it up with a manual hose kit. Just to detail it for posterity, my replacement gearbox cooling system is made up of the following bits:

 

2x M12 to AN-8 adapters to fit into the banjo bolt holes in the top of the gearbox: (you also need two 13mmx2.5mm O-rings for the top of the gearbox, VW part #089409069)

 

2x 90º curved AN-8 to hose barb adapters:

 

A Mocal oilstat (opens to flow ATF through the external cooler when it's reached 80ºC):

 

A 16-row, half-width Mocal oil cooler:

 

and some oil-rated 0.5" Aeroquip hose to hook it all up. I'd already mounted the cooler in front of the radiator near the nearside headlight, so it should have been a reasonably easy job to cut the hoses to length and hook it all together. Unfortunately I had a lapse in concentration at around midnight while Stu had nipped out to the loo - I torqued the thread adapters into the gearbox and threaded the hose barb adapters onto them by hand, but totally forgot to tighten them, because I'm a massive idiot. More on this later! We cut a small section out of the flat plastic guide between headlight and radiator so the hoses could pass neatly into the middle section of the slam panel, prefilled the cooler with ATF and hooked up the hoses.

 

side mission ends here

 

Then we started hooking up the hoses from Roose. Luckily we had another VR6 in the workshop so we could refer to it when we were confused as to which end went where - it was about 01:30 by this point so it didn't take much to confuse us :lol: Fitting them was an absolute joy - every single hose fit perfectly! The silicone is slightly slippery, and the inner diameters are perfectly matched to the OEM hoses so they glide straight onto the flanges and grip them firmly because of the increase wall thickness. All the clips were perfectly sized bar one (approx 1mm too small in diameter - possibly a packing error) but I had a spare that fit so it wasn't an issue. They are also really shiny which brightens up the bay and makes it look a lot more attractive. We took our time and made sure we lined up the hose clips so they could be removed again in future if necessary, and were all done by about 3am so we slowly filled it up with coolant, put everything back in the bay and started warming up the engine to get the air bubbles out of the system. The hoses are such a good fit not a single drop of coolant escaped :D

 

Unfortunately after a few minutes of running the engine there was suddenly a massive waterfall of ATF off the top of the gearbox and a lot of panicking ensued! It didn't take long to realise what had happened...where I hadn't tightened up the ATF hose adapters the gearbox had merrily pumped all the ATF out of its top and the waterfall was where it had all collected on top of the box and eventually overflowed :oops: :epicfail:

 

After that we had to take out the battery, disconnect the starter motor and remove the coilpack, the nearside headlight and the lower radiator hose just to get access to get a spanner onto the adapters I hadn't tightened :nono: :censored: It ended up taking around three hours of constant apologising for being a massive berk (from me) and saintly tolerance (from Stu) to get them tightened up, we lost a couple more litres of coolant and made a three-foot wide puddle of ATF on the floor which then needed mopping up. When we finally got everything back together and tidied up, we dropped the car back down and I started reversing out when Stu noticed only one of the headlights worked...I cut the engine while he plugged it back in and then couldn't get it restarted because the battery was flat :bad-words:

 

We finally finished up at around 04:30. I didn't get home until 05:00, so I spent 90 minutes in bed, got back up again and drove to work... Now I'm absolutely knackered, but I do have an incredibly shiny engine bay :D

 

Before:

 

After (apologies for crap pic, it was dark...):

 

Massive props to Stu for being

 

a) kind enough to offer help in the first place, knowing it might take ages

b) kind enough not to kick me out at midnight so he could go to bed

c) kind enough not to brain me with a torque wrench after my massive fcukup caused us three hours of aggro

d) and he's still talking to me! :notworthy: I owe him a lot of beer.

 

Time for bed now! :sleeping:

[beastie4126 0]

Short answer is, I don't know. I would guess something to do with getting the tooling out again after curing though? On the bright side, the joining piece is translucent so you can tell if your aux pump is working by watching the coolant pulse past ;) :

 

I do remember the chap from Viper saying that getting these pieces done would require making the tool time and time again or something like that. TBH looking at the pic of them on they look ok to me and for the price compared to Samco + time to make them they are a steal.