Well, I’ve found out some more about this since yesterday — stuff you old timers probably already knew, but I’m still learning. Turns out that it’s a 1/8” compression fitting which is quite different from pipe fittings both in size and threading — so my original idea is not going to work.
When I went to the hardware store, they told me that nobody makes a way to plug a 1/8” compression fitting opening. They had a couple of suggestions — a ball bearing to plug the tip of the compression fitting but I’d be afraid that it would still leak or that I couldn’t get the ball bearing back out when I try to fix it later.
They also suggested a compression to pipe coupler which I would connect to the engine block using a short piece of 1/8” tubing. But that weight shaking around at the end of the tubing just sounded to me like a problem waiting to happen — if that tubing ever fractured, I’d have a real mess on my hands.
So now I’m thinking of rigging up something on my own. Taking an inch and a half or two of 1/8” copper tubing, plugging about half of it with a piece of copper wire and solder (the kind they use for pipes) and then inserting that into the engine block with a compression fitting and ferrule.
Any thoughts on this idea?
