Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:33:46 -0800
Reply-To: Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Which coolant hoses to replace on an 85 1.9 L motor?
In-Reply-To: <4d6696c5.0a81dc0a.45dc.ffffd1e8@mx.google.com>
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All this talk about hoses is getting me worried. YES, when I take my car to the mechanic for something and if he recommends a hose need replacing, I do it without hesitation. (Only has happened twice.) My 85 Vanagon just turned 190,000 miles; I use it for extended road trips; reliability is most important. (I do carry some silicon rescue tape but still am nervous, starting to take the fun out of it).
So..What to do? I think some of the hoses on a 1.9 L motor are NLA (per Van Again's diagram I saw a while back). Are there some hoses that are more likely to fail than others? I imagine so. Just replace them all? Seems like a monumental (expensive) task. Or, just take it to mechanic for "Hose inspection & replacement" and let him be the judge? I don't know if I have the experience to make a good judgment myself on whether a hose is safe and sound or not; as pointed out by David, sometimes things are not so obvious or may be "hidden" on the underside and so forth.
Seriously, one of the main reasons I am leaning towards a Subie 2.2 conversion is for the coolant hose issue on my 26 year old motor. From what I've read, things are somewhat simplified, or at least available.
And to me, rummaging around FLAPS to try to find a hose that's "close enough" to be able to make it work sounds like a nightmare. I just wouldn't feel confident (guess it's done all the time though).
So looking for advice, insight, experience, recommendations on this issue. And it must be an issue for many of us who don't just like to "wait" until it breaks on some lonesome hiway bringing an abrupt end to an otherwise long-awaited road trip.
Rich
San Diego
--- On Thu, 2/24/11, David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET> wrote:
From: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Sealant necessary for coolant hoses?
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Date: Thursday, February 24, 2011, 9:34 AM
At 02:32 AM 2/24/2011, M. Jade wrote:
>Thanks a lot for everyone's quick reply to the question. The coolant
>hose is original. It was never replaced despite the thermostat has
>been replaced twice and the hose was disconnected and reconnected
>many times. I noticed that the hose is not as flexible as when it
>was very new. But it is not hardened to a point to need replacement.
You're talking about a twenty six year old hose here that's been
subjected to innumerable pressure/heat cycles. VW hoses are of very
high quality but they do have their limits, and the limits I've
observed (n of approximately ten) have all but one involved a roughly
3/8" long slit in the longitudinal direction of an old but apparently
healthy hose. No loss of flexibility apparent in any case. In the
anomalous case the hose (still flexible) split transversely at the
nipple. It was shortened a half inch and one week later split
again. This was the odd hose on the 2.1l that has a skinny end going
to the ring manifold surrounding the engine hatch and a very short
fat right-angled end going to the engine. The failure was at the engine.
My point is that these hoses are way past their intended service
lives, no matter what they look like. I'm sensitive to this, since
the '89 I got a couple years ago had four coolant blowouts in the
first four months of driving, all in hoses that looked and felt perfectly good.
Yours,
David