Heater Hose Replacement Update

When I installed the new hose, I had reused the factory spring clamps.

BAD IDEA

The new hose has a smaller wall thickness, so the clamps are able to apply less pressure on the hose/nipple than they did on the old hose. Combined with age and loss of spring tension, this allowed one of the hoses to pop loose this morning. Oddly enough, it was the stretched wide end at the driver's side of the engine.

Lucky for me, this happened right around the corner from my house so I was able to get it back home. I had a proper hose clamp in the garage, so I installed that and got to work. This weekend I'll be replacing all the clamps with worm clamps. Sigh.

Driving through Hollywood last Saturday, I smelled coolant. When we came out of The Grove, I saw a bunch of coolant on the ground under the Saab. I popped the hood, didn't see a hole or leak immediately, so dumped all the bottled water I had in the car and made it home.

The above pic is what I found. The heater hose had a slit. Of course, no local shops had one of these things, so I ordered one from RockAuto. It's a pair of molded hoses, bound together in the middle. Old one on the left, channellocks for size perspective.

The hoses use those stupid spring clamps instead of worm clamps, which was lots of fun to both release and attach. And the heater core ends had to be reached from under the car. But all in all, not a horrible job. Took about half an hour.