Whats the dope on pipe dope?

[jabinya]

Im in the middle of installing a Aeromotive FPR and I found a thread that spoke about the vacuum and adj. screw leaking. They suggested that you use pipe dope instead of teflon tape or paste.

Well I went and bought some and tested it on two fittings. It seems OK but it never dries. The package said it withstands 10,000PSI and can be used with gasoline. Wonder if I can use this on my oil filter bracket fittings?

Ive had so many leaks on this car and I want it to stop.

Anybody with personal experience?

 

[awdrst]

I used to work with a pipe fitter that used pipe dope on all of his fittings. He built fire suppression systems for schools and some other large buildings. From what i remeber its very messy but i've never ever had a fitting leak after using the stuff and i've used it on some high pressure situations. I don't really think i'd use it on my car but that is me. If you want to use it I was told to put it on the threads and then put tefon tape over it tightly and tighten the fitting down.

 

[CyberEye]

I always, ALWAYS use thread/pipe dope. I freaking hate teflon tape. The shit is impossible to work with.

 

[thekellbeast]

On the boat we use teflon tape on really little stuff that we just need to put together fast. We use pipe dope on bigger things, like our stainless jacket water piping, oil and fuel fittings, ect.

Pipe dope won't fix messed up thread though. The shop that cut our piping messed up the thread on a couple fittings, so they have a really slow seep going. We're going to have to pull them apart and see if we can clean them up during our next maintenence period.

 

[daren_p]

You can get a couple different types of pipe "dope", some is in stick form (like a big crayon), which is dry & then some that comes in a tube & is more of a liquid. Both of these work well & the advantage they have over teflon tape is that pieces of the tape can come off and plug up small orfices in the system, while pipe dope won't do this. Plus you can usually adjust whatever you use the pipe dope on & it will seal properly while tape won't always.

 

[GSTac]

Check out www.gasoila.com . They have all kinds of pipe dope. I do compliance testing on gas stations, and we use the soft set gasoila, as do a lot of the maintenance companies. The crap works great. They even make a type that is supposed to seal damaged threads. Just don't get the junk on your clothes, you will never get it all off.

 

[jabinya]

Cool, thanks for the info!

I'm changing the oil this weekend so I will replace all the oil fittings with Pipe dope.

Hopefully no more James Bond oil slicks in the driveway!

 

[DRSully]

I worked as a pipefitter/plumber for several years. You can use both tape and dope if you want. Teflon tape is designed to be a sealer. Pipe dope is really only designed to be a lubricant, but it should make it easier to get the fittings a little tighter. Pipe dope will eventually dry up. The problem people have is that they get carried away with teflon tape. The tape only needs to make a couple rounds over the threads. You also want to avoid the first couple threads so that you will not have any excess that will come off inside the fitting.

In all it is good stuff. Just do not get carried away with it.


Take care,

David

 

[Maglin]

When I was working with pipe dope in pool repair I was told one thing that seems to hold true. Dope is for fluids and tape is for air fittings. Never had any issues with pipe dope. Did with teflon tape a few times on some fluid fittings cause I didn't have any pipe dope and was to lazy to go get some.

 

[pneumo]

So what do you think of Teflon Paste? Any thoughts? I tried it because I thought it won't tear like teflon tape, it would fill in any gaps between the threads and still seal it up. I've had good luck with it, but I also had one steady oil leak in the turbo oil supply line at the filter housing. Maybe it leaked because of the heat?

 

[jabinya]

I have a leak in the exact spot your talking about, I used teflon paste (which turns hard as stone after a few heat cycles) but leak continued. Found out later that the OEM pressure gauge sender was leaking from the base. Not the threads, the part where the metal meets the plastic. So Im not sure that I stopped the turbo oil feed leak or not. It covered the housing with oil before I could tell.

 

[jabinya]

Update:

I finished installing the FPR using pipe dope and had no leaks! After a boost leak check I did find that the adjusting screw up top was leaking. I put some dope on the threads and It fixed the problem!

Thanx guys!

 

[Defiant]

Use hardware solutions on hardware, and automotive products on automobiles.
The BIS screw is supposed to have a rubber plug on top of it. If it doesn't, spray the threads with WD-40 and fill the hole with silicone seal. If you ever need to mess with it, the new plug will come right out.

 

[DSM007]

A product called Gasolia works the best for threaded fuel fittings.....we use it all the time on the water seperators of our boats at work.