Re: Replacement oil lines to cooler

[Aleksander Mierzwa <alex@matrix.com.pl>]

At 07:11 17.06.98 -0700, Anton Gaidos wrote:

>Sometime ago I brought up the discussion of replacing oil lines to the
>cooler on the ur-quattro. Now I am actually at that point that I've
>looked into a couple options, or lack there of.
> The dealer wants $300 plus for the short one and $400 plus for the long
>one. Only one oil line for this car is available in north america at
>this time and the price is unreasonable too.
> So I went to The Hose Shop here in Santa Cruz. This guy takes a look at
>my blown hose a]and states that the stuff Audi used is very high tech
>and expensive. 

I've always considered the OE lines a cheap crap.

>For $150 he will cut the old hose off my fittings , braze
>on new fittings and add in a new piece of the same hose as Audi used.
>This way I keep all the factory tubing but can easliy replace the hose
>again if it fails. For the longer hose it is $180.
> Well, I am confident this is a good way to go but wonder about the
>price. Anyone care to share the experiences on this?

Every hydraulic hose has three important parameters: max pressure (5 bars
is enough for the oil line), max temperature (no less than 150C) and min
bend angle (see how the OE lines are routed). There's no need to use any
"high tech, expensive" hose, just one that has sufficient parameters. In my
case I went to the Parker dealer and they used a high pressure (something
like 2000psi, I know, an overkill, but it ensures it is physically very
robust) line. Max temperature is 100C, a little bit too low, but they're
holding up well. I paid well below $100 for both lines including new
fittings, so I guess the prices you've been quoted are way out of the line.

Aleksander Mierzwa
Warsaw, Poland
mailto:alex@matrix.com.pl
87 Audi 5000CS turbo (mine)
88 Renault Medallion wagon (mom's)
91 mountain bike (just in case both cars broke at the same time :-)