ACE pipes

Hi guys. Whilst having the car up on axle stands to replace the rear pinion seal I noticed that the rear ace pipes are VERY corroded. I understand that I can get replacements from Landrover but my questions are can they be made myself if I go and purchase the relevant parts or could a hydraulic company make them and finally could they be made from rubber to avoid corrosion in the future?

Thanks.

Kev

...if u want to improvise be aware that operational pressure of ACE is up to 135 bar......so I think rubber wont bear the brunt of it.....my advise is to use the dedicated ones, they are not outrageously expensive.

KevsTD5 said:

Hi guys. Whilst having the car up on axle stands to replace the rear pinion seal I noticed that the rear ace pipes are VERY corroded. I understand that I can get replacements from Landrover but my questions are can they be made myself if I go and purchase the relevant parts or could a hydraulic company make them and finally could they be made from rubber to avoid corrosion in the future?

Thanks.

Kev

Click to expand...

Hi Kev, your options are:

1. Ditch the ACE altogether and run with std arb's;

2. Replace corroded pipes with LR ones, suitably painted to avoid them corroding again;

3. Get hydraulic pipes made up but they are likely to be more bulky;

It is worth remembering that the ACE system works at very high pressure - up to 135 bar - so rubber pipes won't work.

The most difficult bit about this repair is, apparently, getting a good, reliable seal into the valve block under the drivers seat.

Thanks guys. I think i will just bite the bullet and buy ready made. I thought rubber pipe of a suitable strength would be a way to go as heavy plant machinery uses it on their hydraulics.

Ive just been through the same thing and to be honest just buy the original landrover pipes as others have mentioned there is a lot of pressure in the ace system. I did look into having some made fro a hydrolic company but the cost was high as well, not as high as original pipes but not much in it.

The new pipes from a landy dealer + 2l of Ace fluid cost me £200 in total.

Theres is a guy on ebay selling them for £149

LAND ROVER DISCOVERY 2 ACE PIPES V/BLOCK - REAR RAM on eBay (end time 27-May-10 17:11:25 BST)

They arnt hard to fit just a bit fiddly to get around the chassis.

Have a look at my post about this on how to bleed the system.

Brian

part of them are rubber, from bracket to actuator both front and back at least they are on mine

you can buy rubber hose that will take 400bar we use it on scuba diving filling stations

ccrdave said:

part of them are rubber

you can buy rubber hose that will take 400bar we use it on scuba diving filling stations

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Believe me, it's armoured rubber and let's say that u have rubber hose which can bear big pressure ....how will u attach them to the acuators and to the valve block??...........i'll stick to my oppinion that u better not mess with such complex systems as ACE (if u want to have it).....U might save small money with improvisations but if it fails when yo're far from a service u'll loose all the fluid and by default the ACE pump (which is greasing itself with the ACE fluid)......then u'll :doh::frusty::wtf::flame2::boom::hurt:

I have had nothing but trouble with my ace that I have it booked in next week to get it ripped out and anti roll bars put in.

Hi.
Are you planning on replacing the valve seals at the same time.
A Landy main agent just changed one of my pipes, tried to cut corners and ended up needing to replace the entire ACE valve block!!
Cost £700+ (Under warranty thankfully)
Cheers.

adj said:

Hi.
Are you planning on replacing the valve seals at the same time.
A Landy main agent just changed one of my pipes, tried to cut corners and ended up needing to replace the entire ACE valve block!!
Cost £700+ (Under warranty thankfully)
Cheers.

Click to expand...

silly thing to do.............albeit to change seals too is not a bad ideea......if u have enough patience to search u might find just the o-rings from the seals and these'll do it.

I replaced these pipes myself with no big problems.......and i'm far from being a Landy main agent

The thing is to undo everything starting from the actuator all the way untill the valve block as to release the pipe...... after that just pull straight the pipe with gentle rotation..........to be easyer u may cut the old pipe just let ehough lenght to grab it with a claw or something

This is the seal which is in the valve block Britcar (UK) Ltd > RVW100010 ACE VALVE BLOCK PIPE SEALS (G) see those o-rings... they are actually sealing......the black thing is just to kick it with a hammer when u introduce the seal into the valve block.......when I replaced my rear pipes i replaced the seals too but after a while the front side leaked and I just changed the O-rings.........dont ask me about part number, I just went to a specialized store(seals/orings/bearings/bolts/etc) with the seal in my hand and found suitable orings(for some small change).......it works.

I have just collected my car from the Land rover Indy garage that i use and he doesn't want the job of changing the ace pipes. Anyways i did get a quote for the parts and jeez those rubber seals are expensive. I am now trying to decide on whether to keep the ace system or do away with it altogether.
Thanks for all your input guys.

Kev

Sorry I know this is quite an old post but my rear ACE pipes have corroded (at the place where they go over the chassis to body support member) and I am having a section of replacement tubing made up by Pirtek. Rubber hosing is used regularly at pressures much higher than the 135psi which the ACE system runs at, and they will supply this with Swagelock fittings to connect to the 10mm OD pipe that is used.

The only reason the original pipes are not all rubber is size (they need to be thicker than metal so that hydraulic response is still good - so they dont "balloon").

There is no reason from a performance point of view why rubber hosing can't be used in this application. Of course metal pipes are more rigid and easier to support along the vehicle, but small sections of rubber are fine.

just take into account that it's about 135 Bar , which is 1960 Psi and the max pressure can reach 180 Bar(2600Psi) randomly ...so any repair you want to do do it to bear this kind of pressures

I had the exact problem 3 weeks ago. Red scary light on dash indicating big problem with ACE system. I stopped very quickly and found the reason why my rear window was covered in crap - the ACE reservoir was empty!. Rear pipe had failed so it was either a tow home or see how far I could limp - having about 0.75 litres of ACE fluid left in a container in the back (from filter change last year). Got about a mile and stopped and topped up again which enabled me to cover the last mile and get the beast home.

Long and short is - I had the option to rip it out or was also told to consider flexible high pressure hose replacement.

Being something of a traditionalist and not daring to touch the pipework myself - I got both rear pipes cropped and replaced by a specialist hydraulic hose firm locally. They didn't disturb the seals as they left a length of pipe to connect to.

Car is fine again - but I know some day the dreaded rot will get the rest of the system but I am prepared to leave that until another day.

It does work and cost me just over £200 cash for the guy to do both sections. I didn't even get my hands dirty!

Shame such a good system is exposed beneath the car and why they didn't use HP flexi hose originally I don't know?