Hi all,

Has anyone found a solution to this issue. I was replacing the SC belt and I had to take off the intake tubes. I found that both of my air inlet tubes the cloth part have unraveled. I looked online and each inlet tube is $130-150 a piece. So, I ended up using some hockey tape to do the job. The hockey tape eventually is starting to come undone as well, along with the residue glue.. Has anyone found a fix for this?

 

ya know, an odd idea, but I ran into a plumbing (yes, house-hold water type plumbing) leak a couple months ago, and while weighing repair options, I did find an alternative to cutting & replacing the copper water line that might be worth considering here...
I found a plumbing product made by JB Weld that is a cloth wrap with a water-activated adhesive that might be a good way to permanently re-cover & seal the existing cloth wrap on the intake ducts.
I ended-up trying it to seal the pipe leak I had, and it worked amazingly (to me) well.
It's super-strong & durable when it cures, and the aesthetics of it are up to the person applying it of course, but I think it may be applicable to answer this problem.
It's available in the plumbing department or Lowes (and probably Home depot & some hardware stores) for about $13 IIRC.

I first heard about it about 20 years ago when the person staying in my home while I was away said that my water main (between the sidewalk & my house) sprung a leak.
They dug-up around the pipe, used this JB Weld pipe leak patch stuff, and that's the last I've had with that problem to this day. (the more recent leak is within the house, far from that water main pipe).

Or if this is a bit too involved of a remedy, there are surely an abundance of epoxy's that could fit the need.

 

We had similar issues on the XK8s where the accordion portion would crack after enough heat and flex over time. Some chose to cut out the flex part and replace with silicone hose used in custom intakes. That would probably work in this case if you can find the right diameter. Whatever you do it needs to allow for flexing. Does the JB Weld wrap stay flexible after curing?

 

No, completely solid; but I was thinking of it being applied only at the ends and not in the middle portion that does not fray.