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I was informed today that Dormant has recalled all of the coolant elbows they make because they leak. I personally had this issue as well as other members.

Kind of funny since I have been saying that they are crap for some time.

Also my mechanic has told me about this for some time now...

After I just put a new set on... haha. Not that I'm surprised, I put in dorman coolant elbows 3 years ago and they started leaking last month.

zuper8 wrote:After I just put a new set on... haha. Not that I'm surprised, I put in dorman coolant elbows 3 years ago and they started leaking last month.

Mine leaked within a few weeks. GM elbows have been on since the new tensioner assembley and haven't leaked. Why couldn't GM have chosen better material to start out?

Replaced intake gaskets and coolant elbows a couple years ago (dormant elbows) they had a slight leak maybe a year later, I just changed them again a few months ago and they already have a very small leak.... not necessarily a ton of work to change them but a pain nonetheless.

Joe, do you have any links or sources for the recall? I just put a set of Dorman's in my car, can probably get the receipt via Rock Auto.

Do they make the HELP! section ones?

00Beast wrote:Joe, do you have any links or sources for the recall? I just put a set of Dorman's in my car, can probably get the receipt via Rock Auto.

I was looking for it, but I got side tracked. I am having a hard time finding anything on it, but I will try and get a copy of the notice from my friend that is a mechanic. He said he just got it the other day.

01bonneSC wrote:Do they make the HELP! section ones?

HELP! is Dorman.

After some googling I'm not seeing any recalls by Dorman online, but I will wait until someone comes up with some hard evidence in favor of the OP to decide either way...

This might require a call to Dorman's corporate offices. My mechanic friend that informed me of this said that O'reilly's Auto Parts did not have any in stock the other day because Dormant pulled them all from the shelves due to a leaking issues. He said they do have a new updated version of the elbows. He said he has had three cars come back in the last three weeks due to leaking coolant elbows that he had just replaced.

Bonneville92V688 wrote:

01bonneSC wrote:Do they make the HELP! section ones?

HELP! is Dorman.

And Motormite as well.

That explains why I'm on set #3 after only 6k... They all start to bend (not maintain the 90 degree shape) and shoot out of the hole after a while. I was going to make a bracket to hold it in place, glad to see I'm not going crazy.

That's funny.............that is exactly what happened to me 2 years ago at WCBF. Haven't had a problem since.

Are these Dorman elbows steel or plastic? When i replaced mine, the one i found at the parts store was steel. I don't remember which part store it was though.

Plastic. Completely different than your 93 though....

I'd be nice if someone would make them in aluminum. You would think it would solve the issues of them failing and you wouldn't have to replace them again.
If that were the case I wouldn't care if they cost 20$.

I got someone to source me an aluminum aussie coolant elbow and I bastardized it to work on my L36:









Pretty overkill. In retrospect, I should have just made a double male adapter from the female end of the aussie elbow to the tensioner. But it works.

Yea, since I had the Dorman's in the 96 I've had to top off the coolant every 3 months. Leaks a couple of tablespoons at every cold startup...

Well this explains why I have gone through 3 elbows in the past 3 months...