If you think you've seen this towel radiator in multiple previous posts .. you have. And I'm STILL working on it. The challenge is that the radiator tails are more porous than the Toronto Maple Leafs blue line. I tried 8 wraps of PTFE tape on the threads, turned on the water and .. drip, drip, drip. So I had to drain the rad and take out the tails and put 14 wraps of PTFE tape on the treads, turned on the water and ... drip, drip, drip.
So once again, I drained and took it all apart. So on went 20 wraps of PTFE tape to the point where threads were no longer visible and the rad tail looked like King Tuts thumb. Surely this has to work. Buttoned it all up again, turned on the water and, YEAH, no leaks! I filled up the rad completely now and turned on the heating, and when it reached full pressure .. drip, drip, drip. So out came some grown up words to express my joy in having to do this once again.
After consulting my friendly sources of knowledge - diynot, pistonheads and mybuilder - I felt somewhat vindicated in knowing that I wasn't the only one with this issue. Towel rads leak and quite often. I don't know why they've managed to solve most other building issues over the last 2 millennia but towel rads are somehow beyond the reach of science.
Or so I thought. Then I discovered Loctite 55. I think this must have been developed for NASA in some Apollo mission. The stuff is great. It looks like some overpriced dental floss and isn't cheap, but will it work? I followed the instructions of cleaning out any gunk from the tail threads, then taking a saw to the clean threads to rough them up a bit. After our recent history, I was more than happy to inflict some pain on those cursed threads. Afterwards I followed the recommended 7 wraps of the Loctite 55 and one for good measure and screwed them back on. Buttoned up the rads, turned on the water and prayed ...
And, NO DRIPS! Feeling confident, I filled the radiator up fully, put the heating on to let it pressurise, and NO DRIPS!!! Finally, I finished the pipes off with some neato chrome pipe covering. One week on and drip free. Hooray for Loctite 55. PTFE tape is going in the bin.
Headline: Scott wins over a tough opponent in extra time
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