How To: repair broken nipples on Solenoids
 

Hi,

a little background for this how to. I accidently broke of the nipples on my pre-control and wastegate-control solenoids when i tried to take off the uim. so i orderer a used unit in good condition to replace my broken one (both solenoids stick together). when i got the ordered part, one nipple was broken ... i was really pissed off. tried to superglue it with expensive plastic superglue, but it didn't work. broke off again. don't try this, the material of the nipple is too thin. even if you add a lot of glue on the outside it won't work. Since this part is under pressure, it has to be solid and without any leaks. so i tried to find another solution. My first idea was to get such a fitting:

http://www.flugmodellbau-shop.eu/ima...ages/938_0.jpg

if you sand down the remaing plastic of the broken nipple, you could tap the hole and screw in the fitting. But you need a 4mm fitting (outer diameter of the thread), 5mm is too big (not enough material) and 1/8" is too thin. i could not find any 4mm one... same problem with hollow bolts.
What i finally did is to get thin titanium pipes (3,5mm - the exact inner diameter of the nipple/hole). i'm sure any other non-rusting metal also works fine. then i cut a piece of the pipe and superglued it into the hole. don't push it in too far, 6mm is enough. if you push it too far, you will seal the whole solenoid and it won't work. after that i put superglue on the outside of the pipe and sticked over the broken nipple. add some glue to the base where the nipple broke off and you are done. this is rock solid, can't even break this off with my hands. If i would try this with the factory nipples you know what would happen ;) ....
Since one new solenoid costs more than 100$ each and alot of guys broke off those nipples, i think this is a good working solution were you can save alot of money.

pictures:

https://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5483/solen1.jpg

https://img39.imageshack.us/img39/8769/solen2.jpg

greetings and happy repairing,
ica

Great man! I think i will do it for prevention before i use to broke one. Nice find

But be careful. the nipples are glued into the stock vacuum lines. could be hard to get them off without damaging them.

I'm curious. Were the original solenoids you had and the replacement ones all from series 7 or series 8 cars?

great fix! i will be doing this soon!!

yes, my car is a series 8, and i got another series 8 solenoid ... are there differences between s7/8 and earlier models?

where did you get the 3.5mm pipes?

I'm not sure. I would have to go back and look, but yours looks slightly different from the series 6 ones I have. Maybe mine are just older and in worse shape on the exterior. I've never seen precontrol/wastegate solenoids fail in any way but I have never dealt with anything besides series 6.

i got the pipes from a friend who works for a company that produces heart pacemakers ^^. but i think those can be ordered on the internet somewhere.

@arghx: would be interesting if you could find out, cause i always thought they are the same.

Awesome fix. I need to do this on mine.

How about PN 5560K418 at Mcmastercarr.com? 304 stainless steel with .008 thick walls and .134" OD (3.4mm)

they're not glued but they do adhere to the plastic after a while.

when removing old vacuum lines ALWAYS use a heat gun on the rubber to soften it up then twist them to break the seal instead of breaking the plastic nipples.

Just spraying any dried up rubber hose with WD40 has always worked for me.

i also used wd40 and a screw driver to get off the hoses. someone on another forum told me they were glued in, and it really looks like that. but if its just adhered ... its not too bad :)

The solenoids you repaired are the stock boost control solenoids which need to be hucked in the trash as soon as you buy a real boost controller. I have a pile of them in my garage I need to unload :).

I applaud the fix, but that's something the car can do without.

The same principle should work on the other 3-way solenoids that ARE a good thing to have for sequential operation.

Dale