Coolant pipe for a Ferrari 250

These coolant pipes are rusted out and beyond repair on most of the Ferrari 250′s that we work on. The workmanship of the originals is a thing of beauty, that lower 90 degree bend does not have any wrinkles or distortion what-so-ever. All of the fittings are perfect gas welds but the wall thickness is so thin that  the smallest rust pitting makes the leak and dust away.

The top bell shaped outlet is also a problem because the temp sensor or plug rarely comes out freely and similar to what happened to this pipe, it twists off the upper outlet. We machine a new upper “bell” and single point the threads to the correct size for the temp sensor, 22mm with a 1.5 thread pitch out of stainless steel. I bought some 90 degree tight radius stainless steel tubing that has a radius that is a bit too tight but will be fine for this application. Next, we weld on the barb ends for the heater hose connections and weld in a threaded “bung” for the drain at the bottom of the pipe. For this car, the pipe will be wrinkle finish black, but for other cars it gets a nickel finish.

Here is the jig we made and some of the photos of the process.

Rusty water pipe for Ferrari 250

Stainless steel tubing bender

Coolant tubing for Ferrari

Stainless steel tubing Ferrari Lusso