Quote Originally Posted by Cathar View Post
Thank you very much for the valuable insight Gabe, especially from one with long-term experience with such fittings.

In your experience, does the use of the tubing brace inserts with soft-walled tubing alleviate the stated issues to a significant degree? Much of what you stated seemed to focus around the use of tubing without inserts. Forgive me if I misunderstood. The inserts offer far less of a restriction hit than barbed fittings, and I can easily remodel the impact of using inserts with push-fits.
Tube inserts are mandatory use with vinyl tubing. I wouldn't even dream about installing vinyl in push-in fittings without them. So I am confirming that my observations are with tube inserts.

One thing that helps is to use a locking clip. It clips on the collet, effectively keeping it in the out position. Gives a little more support to the tube and reduce lateral pressure on the o-ring. But still, these fittings are working out-of-specs in our environment.

I am curious: Why concern yourself with a .125" reduction over a few inches when you just demonstrated that the same reduction over several feet in a typical cooling loop is only affecting temps by a mere ~1C ???

Push-ins are elegant and attractive to our kind, but in my experience they represent a possible hazard unless one refills/maintains the system every 6 months to a year.

Don't get me wrong: I still use push-ins in industrial apps where system pressure is 45~60 PSI. In such apps, they are absolutely flawless. Just not in your typical PC cooling system.