Just changed coolant hoses

[tonflo]

So I ordered all the coolant hoses (~10 or 11 I think) for my car & stocked up on hose clamps & a new jug of havoline dex-cool to flush & change coolant too. The hoses are 11 yrs old & the top radiator hose crackles when you squeeze it. I don't want a breakdown so it's time to be preventive. A word of warning for you guys. DO NOT even bother trying to change the coolant hose on the outboard side of the turbo (shaped like a big square cornered "c") or the one that runs from the lowest fitting on the coolant tank down to a hard line just above top of engine. They use those damn pinch to open clamps & there is no way or room to get a good bite with pliers & fingers aren't strong enough. If you have a set of extra long pliers with the 90 degree bend in the jaws you might be able to get them. Not sure since I don't have any. If any of you have the turbo, exhaust, or engine out I would change them then & put on regular hose clamps angled for future accessability. Other than that everything went smoothly. Also, the squiggly hose that comes out the side of the coolant tank by the cap may be obsoleted. My parts guy still hasn't heard back from Subaru. I with they had put these in differently at the factory or just used real hose clamps to begin with. Probably saved a whole 25 cents per car.

[tzedek]

everyone complains about those clamps, personally I like them. But in situations like that where you just cant get to it, then they are a real PITA. Pick yourself up a clamp tool.

[tonflo]

What do these clamp tools do that pliers don't? Smaller or better bends or something?

[vrg3]

Why Dex-Cool? I thought that if Dex-Cool and regular ethelyne glycol coolant mixed they made bad sludgey stuff.

Yeah, a lot of those spring-type clamps are really hard to deal with. I got a set of needle nose pliers with almost any kind of odd angle you can think of from CostCo that helped me tremendously with those as you guess.

That hose by the cap isn't that big a deal. It's among the least stressed coolant hoses on the car.

Hose clamp tools have jaws designed to cradle the spring clamp handles so they don't slip. With pliers, the clamp can slip out.

[tonflo]

I use dex cool so I don't have to change it very often, Last batch was in for 7 yrs & if I hadn't been chaging the hoses I would have left it. It's the Havoline extended life stuff, orange like Kool-Aid or pop.

[vrg3]

And when you do change it you find it comes out clean and when you expose cooling passages you find them clean too?

[tonflo]

It looked clean & what little I could see inside the tubes & fittings looked good. The only crud was on the outside of the bottom radiator hose fitting where the thermostat is. I think that was crud that worked in under the edge of the hose being so close to road spray. It was still testing good to 40 below & looked nice & orange. I don't have any antifreeze test strips though & I don't know if they work on the extended stuff.

[vrg3]

Huh. Cool.

[Flip_x]

dexi cool messed my car up it overheated every 3 miles then changed it to normal stuff then its good..

[Legacy777]

Yeah, my mom had a similar experience in her yota with running the orange coolant.