Thursday, June 5, 2014

P59: Getting Hosed

Part costs can add up, especially the little stuff. It seems the price of cut-to-length hose and clamps has quadrupled in just the past few years. The trouble is, unless you know for certain exactly what you need, you're not going to order this stuff online, and who would pay shipping on hose clamps?

Needing to replace all the hoses in the cooling system, I took a few section samples with me to a local box store that carries auto supplies; I also took my digital caliper. To my point above, heater hose was $1.99 a foot regardless of diameter. A store 20 miles away had the same stuff for $0.69. This I knew, but the retailers know most folks won't waste their time and gas to drive somewhere else for a few feet of hose (and they're right, I paid a 1.99 a foot). 

So maybe I can save you a few bucks in advance...Four feet of 3/4" hose is all you need to connect the heater core to the heater pipe, the pipe to the rad, and the core to the intake. No 5/8" in this car. The original hose from core to pipe was specially formed to account for the tight angle. With a little trial and error on length and twist, you can use conventional hose without causing a kink. Don't forget hose clamps when you're picking up the hose. You'll need 5.
The pre-cut length crapshoot. Occasionally cheaper than by-the-foot.
Pre-formed upper radiator hoses are available from a lot of places, that's no problem. But the lower hose isn't, and you'll have to substitute a 'bend to fit' version. The problem with this is that the lower radiator port is easily malleable brass that reduces to a 'round-rect', and the angle to the waterpump is pretty tight. To compound the problem, the hose wall is pretty thick to resist collapsing under suction. When installing, I could tell there's a lot of side loading going on at the radiator. Not ideal, but I'm not the first guy to go through this.


Note hose sections to heads (clamps not installed).
There are two hose sections that run from the WP to the heads. The elbows are interchangeable, and the sections are identical in length. On this car, the head-to-elbow gaskets were factory installed dry. I added a skim coat of blue silicone to each of the replacements for a little insurance. These gaskets are part of the timing cover gasket set Felpro TCS126811. The entire set is around 10 bucks online, not bad, even if you buy it just for these two.



With my digital caliper at the parts store, I found a sub-$10 radiator hose with the identical ID of the stubs, and with enough section length to cut two new stubs out of it. Look for Dayco 70081. For hose clamps, the uncompressed OD is 1-7/8". You'll need 4, obviously.

Now's a good time to talk about the t-stat. I bought a 180 degree replacement, but found out later the original (and the shop manual confirms) the factory t-stat was 170 degrees. I need to add a temp gauge anyhow, so I'll keep an eye on what effect this ultimately has; 170 is a tough number to find.


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