Pipes

[Knight Rider]

Now my car is coming up 10yrs old is there any life expectancy within the pipes in the engine bay??
None of them looked cracked or past it - BUT should i set some moneies aside to have them replaced in the near future??

[Flatout Phil]

Vacumn pipes and those round the turbo can get brittle, but a nice Samco set always brightens things up ;)

[The Flying Moose]

Vacumn pipes and those round the turbo can get brittle, but a nice Samco set always brightens things up ;)

Phil speaks wise words, vacuum pipes can be a huge problem if they have split or gone brittle. I kept getting boost leak as the pipes decayed/split more so replaced them.

You can also use 5mm Fuel hose which is braided and alot stronger than silicone. Should also last longer.

[Knight Rider]

Cool i know sweet diddly bout my engine to be honest - so where are the vacuum pipes?

[Flatout Phil]

There is a really good diagram on this forum somewhere but they are the much smaller diameter (approx 8mm) rubber pipes that go from the inlet manifold via the back of the air filter box round to the turbo and various other bits and bobs. They are easy to spot and fairly easy to replace with a decent pair of pliers, and maybe a Torx head screwdriver set to remove the air filter box properly to get at the pipe routing (get them for less than a fiver on Ebay). The hose can be Volvo standard issue but that is about £12 a metre. You can use braided fuel hose, or a generic rubber vacumn hose. Obviously you don't really want vacumn hoses being flimsy because they may collapse under vacumn. I am sure a spanner jockey would allow about half an hour to do the job if you really don't want to do it yourself. The hoses I WOULD get replaced by someone else, are the smaller diameter water pipes around the turbo - they are an ARSE to get at. They are also the pipes most likely to fail cos they get baked and can get oil spray on them - not good for rubber.