Plumbing questions

[John Fitzgerald]

Hi all. I have a plumbing fixture question. Just trying to flush the lines in my 88 bigfoot and it seems the water heater bypass valves are not sealing. Antifreeze is leaking into the hot water tank and i can't build up any pressure to flush the rest of the lines. The bypass is made up of a whole bunch of pieces of the light grey type of tubing and has metal rings that clamp the tubing in place. Is there an easy way to remove and replace the suspect valves. I have not worked with this type of tubing before and i assume you need a special tool to clamp the rings. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

John

[peterh]

Before you go replacing the valves, have you tried replacing the washers inside the valves first?

[Roy in TO]

When I zoom in to full size on the picture, the valves look like the 1/4 turn stop cock type. If so, following peter's suggestion, they might need O rings.

[Eddie Longest]

John
Your plumbing is Quest tubing. It was recalled I would say in the mid 90's and it was the object of a class action law suit. The main problem was with the plastic fittings they would crack and fail. Quest fittings and tubing are next to impossible to find.
The replacement for Quest (gray) tubing is PEX (white, blue, red, and dark red) tubing. They look like the same tubing but the fittings and tubing have different diameters. The PEX crimp fittings are brass. Both tubing can be used with compression or crimp fittings. Sharkbite fitting work with PEX but you have to have an insert to stiffen the tubing. I'm not sure if the insert will fit the Quest.
What you need to do is convert to PEX and replumb what you have in PEX. You can buy a Quest to PEX crimp fitting. You then need to find someone with or buy a PEX crimper to duplicate what you have in PEX.
Eddie

[John Fitzgerald]

Thanks to everyone's responses. Never even thought there would be any replaceable parts in those valves! Looks like the easiest would be to replace the O rings or washers first. If that doesn't work out then i will replace with Pex. I really appreciate the input.

John.