For those of you that are interested, this is what happened a few weeks ago when I melted my oil return line after my heat wrapping disintegrated.
This is what my oil return line looked like after I removed it for inspection...
October 2012 010 by
bertybeatle, on Flickr
The end which is closest to the fitting is still intact. The pipe still has its integrity and it is just the outside which is melted. Lower down the pipe, you can see the actual breach point. This is completely melted through and extremely brittle.
I "fixed" the issue by changing a few things.
1. I cut the fitting on the turbo so I could angle the return pipe away from the manifold. Previously, the length of the fitting meant that the oil return line could not be angled away.
2. I heat wrapped the oil return line with the same material used to do the manifold.
3. I am treating this component as a regular consumable part with a life span of around 6 months. All i need to do in the service is change the pipe which costs about $15 for the length that I need.
IMAG0205 by
bertybeatle, on Flickr
This was the next issue that I found during the service. The waste gate line had also melted! Although the picture is blury, you can see how the black line has broken away from the fitting. I noticed that there was another thread on here about zip-tieing the vac lines in place (I think that it was the thread about Viton hoses). The line on my car failed due to the clamp, not the fitting. It seems like the uneven pressure applied to the silicon hose by the clamp is what caused the failure - not the heat.
October 2012 013 by
bertybeatle, on Flickr
Here is my first attempt at fixing it. Note that I have since removed the hose clamps as the push on fitting does a really great job of holding the hoses on. I have used some 1/8 NPT to -4AN fittings so I can use some -4AN 90 degree bends. This way, I can guide the silicon hoses up and away from the hottest sections of the exhaust to prevent any further failure.
October 2012 015 by
bertybeatle, on Flickr
This is the exhaust manifold and dump after being sanded and then have a few coats of VHT flameproof. There are some people on the net that say that having paint under the exhaust wrap is bad idea. I can say that from my experience, this is simply not true. My manifold was painted prior to this and my dump was not. Once I removed all of the old heat wrap the dump had a lot of surface rust whilst the manifold still had all of its paint and was rust free! From my experience I will now always paint my mild steel exhaust materials even if I am going to heat wrap them.
IMAG0207 by
bertybeatle, on Flickr
I bought the extreme heat wrap from Jegs which is rated to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the highest rated wrap that you can buy. I also opted for a much larger overlap than standard to prevent the issues that I had with the previous exhaust wrap. I ended up using three roles to do everything here and had just enough.
October 2012 021 by
bertybeatle, on Flickr
I gave the car a bit of wash also.
