I had this broken nipple happen to mine recently. I noticed loss of power when accelerating and thought the car might be in limp mode so I was curious to see if I could find something out of the ordinary under the hood. And I found this...
Nearly all the coolant in the tank was gone. Surprisingly, the low coolant dummy light in the speedometer cluster never lit up to indicate any problem.
So, the following day, I decided to take out the coolant reservoir and replace the broken nipple by going to Lowes and bought a threaded, 1/4" MIP brass hose barb (UPC# 32888 19154 9) for less than $3. I did not have to buy a tap because one was already available to me with a just little mod.
To make the tap, I just created six small slits at the end of the threaded end of the barb using a small Dremel grinding wheel.
The slits were cut at an angle so it would take a better 'bite' into the material.
The tanks nipple hole center was relocated about 1/8" inboard and the new hole was enlarged using a 1/2" drill bit.
The new hole reveals a nice amount of plastic material for the barb thread to bite into.
Next, I tapped the hole using the modified barb thread in a slow clockwise-counterclockwise motion until I no longer felt any resistance. A 14mm open end wrench worked best for this process
Here's a nice shot of the new thread in the plastic material.
With the tank cleaned of any plastic shavings, it was time to finalize the new barb installation.
The new barb installed and tightened with a coat of 2-part epoxy and allowed to cure while the tank was mounted back to the Crossfire.
And the final pic with everything re-connected, tightened and filled.
To make sure everything was working again, the Crossfire was ran at idle to operating temperature for 30 minutes with the vents on high heat. The low coolant dummy light in the speedo cluster remained on and turned off intermittently but eventually was back to normal after its first commute.
Very happy at the results. Power was back up and the repair only took me 2 hours, a little epoxy, two jugs of 50/50 coolant and a barb that cost less than $3.00!