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1G What kind of coolant hose to get?

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XC92

Proven Member
1,573
359
Jul 22, 2020
Queens, New_York
I took my Talon out for a short drive the other day, still gingerly testing out my recent trans rebuild. Everything went fine and I thought it was time to get it on the highway, if only briefly. One exit, and it performed fine through all forward gears. A bit under a mile from home, though, driving on a local street, I heard a popping sound followed by a loud whooshing sound, then saw steam coming out from under the hood.

I immediately pulled over and turned off the engine, and got out to see what was going on. There was coolant leaking on the ground, and steam coming from the source of the leak. I waited until the engine cooled down then poured some water into the radiator cap. I then drove home, carefully, driving the car as far as it could go before steam started coming out again (never got near the red), then stopping and waiting again. I finally made it back and parked it for the night as it was too late and dark to be able to inspect much.

The next day I raised the front and took a lot, and it turned out to be the oil cooler water feed hose, the short piece of hose that connects the oil cooler to the thermostat water feed line, part # MD167360. It was still leaking, slowly, a drop at a time, so I applied some black weatherstrip adhesive, to at least stop the leak until I found a replacement hose so coolant wouldn't get all over the street (lots of feral cats, squirrels and raccoons here that might want to sample the sweet poison).

I'm sure that I can purchase this hose from a dealer or elsewhere. It's around $7. But I'm guessing that it's just generic high pressure coolant hose (3/8" ID I believe), and was wondering if I could just buy a length of it and cut it to the right size to replace the busted piece, and use the rest to replace any other identically-sized hose sections that look iffy. Anyone know if this is so and if so what kind of hose I should get, and where? I think that RTM sells some by the foot, along with the OEM hose piece, but I'd rather get it locally and not have to wait, so I can get the car on the road again.

From the look of it it's probably the original hose so I'm guessing that there are others that also need to replaced, in this and all other sizes. Stuff happens on 29 year old cars and you have to keep ahead of it before that stuff gets too bad. Like driving 65 on the highway and a high pressure coolant or oil line busts bad.

Anyway, any suggestions would be welcome. Stupid question, but can I use clear food grade silicone high temp hose, the kind I got to repair a coffeemaker a while back, or would that burst because it can't handle the pressure?

Oh, and I suspect that the reason the hose burst was because the pressure got too high, due to the fans not kicking in. I suspect this because after I shut off the engine with the steam coming out, and turned the key all the way but without starting the engine again, the fans didn't come on like they're supposed to when the engine is hot. If so, what am I supposed to check for to see if it's the fan motors, circuit, temp sensor, relay or fuse?
 
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Mine did the same a couple years back, I just used some 3/8 parts store coolant hose, never gave me a bit of trouble.

Pretty much everything made of rubber on these cars should have been or is due to be changed by now, simply from age.
 
Yeah, next on my list. Which is long. LOL Just the other day the wiper fluid pump nipple thing broke so I epoxied it back on till I can get a proper replacement.

Old car, stuff happens.

And, I did a quick check on Autozone & Advance Auto Parts and neither seemed to have this kind of hose in stock. Is it the sort of thing that's so generic that it's often not on their web site and you have to just go in and ask for it, kind of like bolts or fuel line?

Would this work:

B000CRFJ3E @ Amazon

They can get it to me by Tuesday.
 
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So even high temp silicone tubing would work, or is that not pressure-resistant since it's not reinforced?

In any case I just ordered a 6' length of the Gates hose from the evil destroyer of brick and mortar stores site that this site doesn't allow links to. Had little choice as I need this ASAP and I don't know if local stores have it and forget about getting someone on the phone at them on a Sunday.
 
I took my Talon out for a short drive the other day, still gingerly testing out my recent trans rebuild. Everything went fine and I thought it was time to get it on the highway, if only briefly. One exit, and it performed fine through all forward gears. A bit under a mile from home, though, driving on a local street, I heard a popping sound followed by a loud whooshing sound, then saw steam coming out from under the hood.

I immediately pulled over and turned off the engine, and got out to see what was going on. There was coolant leaking on the ground, and steam coming from the source of the leak. I waited until the engine cooled down then poured some water into the radiator cap. I then drove home, carefully, driving the car as far as it could go before steam started coming out again (never got near the red), then stopping and waiting again. I finally made it back and parked it for the night as it was too late and dark to be able to inspect much.

The next day I raised the front and took a lot, and it turned out to be the oil cooler water feed hose, the short piece of hose that connects the oil cooler to the thermostat water feed line, part # MD167360. It was still leaking, slowly, a drop at a time, so I applied some black weatherstrip adhesive, to at least stop the leak until I found a replacement hose so coolant wouldn't get all over the street (lots of feral cats, squirrels and raccoons here that might want to sample the sweet poison).

I'm sure that I can purchase this hose from a dealer or elsewhere. It's around $7. But I'm guessing that it's just generic high pressure coolant hose (3/8" ID I believe), and was wondering if I could just buy a length of it and cut it to the right size to replace the busted piece, and use the rest to replace any other identically-sized hose sections that look iffy. Anyone know if this is so and if so what kind of hose I should get, and where? I think that RTM sells some by the foot, along with the OEM hose piece, but I'd rather get it locally and not have to wait, so I can get the car on the road again.

From the look of it it's probably the original hose so I'm guessing that there are others that also need to replaced, in this and all other sizes. Stuff happens on 29 year old cars and you have to keep ahead of it before that stuff gets too bad. Like driving 65 on the highway and a high pressure coolant or oil line busts bad.

Anyway, any suggestions would be welcome. Stupid question, but can I use clear food grade silicone high temp hose, the kind I got to repair a coffeemaker a while back, or would that burst because it can't handle the pressure?

Oh, and I suspect that the reason the hose burst was because the pressure got too high, due to the fans not kicking in. I suspect this because after I shut off the engine with the steam coming out, and turned the key all the way but without starting the engine again, the fans didn't come on like they're supposed to when the engine is hot. If so, what am I supposed to check for to see if it's the fan motors, circuit, temp sensor, relay or fuse?
There is nothing special to the hose! 3/8 heater hose should work fine, Oreily sells it by the foot, should only be around $2.50 where ever ur from for the piece simply cut and use new clamps..
 
The one I ordered came out to $2/ft. Arrives tomorrow so hopefully it fits. Should I expect most of the coolant to come out or just a small amount?
 
Moot point since I already ordered from Amazon. Arrives tomorrow. I hate buying stuff at auto stores since there are always lines and the workers usually don't know that much about car parts.
 
Got the hose yesterday, took the old piece out (with around 3qts of coolant leaking out into a drain pan), cut a piece just slightly longer than the old one, put the new piece on, clamped both ends, poured the old coolant back in (it was clean and I'm going to dump everything soon anyway to replace the TB & WP), turned on the car, ran it for ~10 minutes till the temp started rising, everything ran fine, no leaks, no overheating, no weird sounds.

Well, until the next one happens. 29 year old car, it's bound to happen. Why I'm not looking to travel far with it for a while, till I get all the kinks out. I reused the old clamps since I didn't have new ones the right size, but I'll probably replace them when I do the TB/WP job. The old ones seem fine though, but I suppose that metal fatigue might have compromised them.

Thanks for the feedback! Even the little things matter.
 
Followup post. When the oil cooler hose broke and steam and hot coolant burst out I noticed that the radiator fan wasn't working, which seemed odd for a hot engine. So today I tested it.

The fan itself worked fine, as did the compressor fan, connecting 12V to each. The fuses were all good, as well as the relay by the battery, and wiring harness. Shorting the relay coil connectors after removing the relay turned both fans on, and activating the relay coil resulted in just a 7ohm resistance in the output pins (and most of that was probably due to old and frayed multimeter cables).

I then tried to test the radiator thermo sensor, but I couldn't figure out how to disconnect the connector just in front of the air filter, where space was really tight. So I tried to short the 2 pins in the connector with the key turned all the way (but the motor not running), and the fan didn't come on. The sensor itself may or may not be bad, but there seems to be a problem with the wires coming from it. Or perhaps the connector's bad

So, anyone know what to try now (and how to disconnect that connector)? Does the sensor connector wire go straight to the ECU or to some interim junction I could test? In any case, if something's up with all that, then the fan will never come on no matter how hot the coolant is, which is BAD.

In fact I suspect that this might be why the hose burst, as the fan didn't kick in, the coolant temp and pressure rose, and eventually it found the weakest spot in the whole system and bust it open. Does that make sense?

Btw what is the coolant temp sensor by the thermostat housing for if there's also one on the bottom of the radiator that the fan is switched on by? And which one is the coolant temp gauge on the dash reading off of? And why is there yet a third sensor, also in the thermostat housing?
 
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So, the radiator sensor is to turn on the fan, and the 2 thermostat ones are for the dash gauge and A/C?
 
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