Rear heater pipes leaking. Replacement ideas.

[Jureb]

My rear heater pipes in my j95 are leaking (lost around 1L of coolant in 6 months) and are in a very bad overall shape - surface is flaking, it's bloated, rusty, falling apart. I think I would be able to penetrate them with a thumbnail without too much effort. I was thinking of blocking the coolant (at the engine bay) from coming to the rear heater and throw these pipes in the rubbish, this seems like a popular idea here on the forum and a pretty good idea because I never use the rear heater. I'll ask the Toyota dealer on Monday how much are the new pipes - I'm expecting 150€+.

I was also thinking of replacing these original pipes with "generic" coolant hoses or maybe some fuel hoses. Did anyone do something similar and can share some tips?

 

[chadr]

Just cap them off in the engine bay, near the bulkhead and job done.

Quite a few members, myself included have done this without issue.

You can get some fuel hose and replace the existing pipes with that but if you never use the rear heater not much point anyway.

 

[Beastrider]

Hello Jureb - those rear heater pipes are a common problem on 95 series. I chose to keep the rear heater and replaced the pipes with rubber heater hose.
If you search ‘heater pipes’, ‘coolant loss’ etc in the search function, you’ll find other threads on this subject with more pictures.

 

[Andysparks]

My steel pipes split due to corrosion a year or two back and I replaced the majority of them with rubber heater hose as shown above. The small sections of steel pipe I left in,( to act as connectors between the old and new flexible pipes) are now starting to deteriorate so I intend on replacing them with short lengths of stainless tube. In the meantime I have just bypassed the rear heater in the engine bay with a couple of short lengths of hose and M10 bolts to act as bungs ( I ground the heads round to make them look a bit neater).

 

[Jureb]

Thanks everyone for your insights.

Hello Jureb - those rear heater pipes are a common problem on 95 series. I chose to keep the rear heater and replaced the pipes with rubber heater hose.
If you search ‘heater pipes’, ‘coolant loss’ etc in the search function, you’ll find other threads on this subject with more pictures.

Very nicely done Beastrider. Could you tell me the dimension of the hoses you used (diameter, rough length)? Where did you get them. Also nice bracket idea for the holding the hoses.

 

[Beastrider]

Hi - I bought 5metres of 8mm bore EPDM heater hose on eBay. The clips are '316 stainless rubber lined hose clamp P-clip' - again from eBay. I can't recall the size though - 25/28mm?. You'll have to reshape the clips to fit the two heater hoses side-by-side. The clips were bolted to the existing M6 studs that held the original metal pipes, I think. I also used brass barbed straight hose connectors near the rear heater matrix (you can just about see them in the photo). I may have used a couple of hose clamps as well - can't quite recall.

There is 'fuel hose' and 'coolant/heater hose'. I assume the rubber compounds are different to cope with fuel or coolant, but I know others have successfully used fuel hose. I chose to use 'heater hose'.

 

[Jureb]

I replaced the rear heater hoses with EPDM heater hoses like @Beastrider did. I'm very satisfied with the repair. It's nice to have a heater in the rear especially on skiing trips and not have the females complain how cold this old box is .