ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

I went to the local metal supply shop today and picked up some aluminum tube to make my coolant hard lines. I am using 1.50" dia. x .058" wall 6063-T853. I am thinking about trying to bend the tube in my garage... Pack the tube with sand, clamp the bend block (anything that has the desired radius) to the bench, clamp one end of the tube down and "wrap" it around the radius. The sand will act like a mandrel keeping the tubing from collapsing. It still may flatten out a little, but t should work. Besides, it's not much money for the tube. Here is a picture of the first coolant line being test fitted...



DesertGuy was right... I seem to have a blue thing going on with this car. I think the parts will end up helping in the color decision process...

why not have a muffler shop bend you up some aluminized? i got my rear tubes free from a friend of a friend, pretty lightweight.

That's looking good Skid. Darn good.

why not have a muffler shop bend you up some aluminized?

What? And take all the fun out of it? I like playing with metal... consider it a $10 experiment. If it fails, lesson learned and then pay someone else to do it...

Dang Skid, didn't know you were making a show car? That is lookin nice.

As far as the Ally tube, doesn't that need to be annealed prior to bending?

We are bending the same grade of .750" dia. aluminum tube at work without any cracking. I won't be attempting anything smaller than a 5" radius, that's for sure... I will have to post the material specs as compared to 6061-T6. This stuff is semi-workable...

Man Skid, that thing already looks way different than when I saw it. But in a good way

What did you use to paint the radiator?

Skidmark wrote:I seem to have a blue thing going on with this car. I think the parts will end up helping in the color decision process...

That car is just screamin' to be Blue...

That looks pretty darn good!

I like the color on the wing. I think anything would look good except pink with 70's stripes on it.

SWEET, now the radiator looks cool. I did'nt visualize the wing, really tightens it up.

I made some tabs to mount my fans to the radiator frame today. After welding, and bolting the frame up, I found the inlet and outlet interferred with two of the mounting tabs... So much for good planning! I had to take it back off and cut the two tabs off. The fans are mounted pretty stout using only three mounts, so I think it will be fine that way. I also routed all of the ECU wires through the firewall, and wired up the fans.



I tried my tube bender on the thin wall alumnium tube with limited success. The outside flattened out some, and the inside rippled. This happened at about 20 degrees. Okay, so that didn't work out. I was staring into the garage thinking what I could do, and noticed one of the cage tubes from bending the front bumper. I had two failed attempts and one of them looked like it might fit... With some more bending, I was able to fit an .090 wall steel tube as the lower coolant hard line. It is just fitted up without clamps or beads to see how it looked. I think the radius is too big going around the header, and it might interfere with the muffler. I will have to build the muffler assembly around that tube if I decide to use it that way...

any worries about the air filter sucking all that hot air?

Yeah, I was thinking about plumbing it to a new location...

I took that aluminum radiator tube to work today and added the beads and a bung for the water temp warning light. One of my welders at the shop did the welding for me. Sweet weld, eh?