Hi again all,

How the flip do you get these floppity-darn heater hoses off of the fittings at the firewall? I am absolutely flabbergasted why they thought it was a good idea to point the tabs on the hose clamps DOWN where you will never have any hope of reaching them.

I've thrown my back out twice now trying to reach over and down from the top, and from underneath I can just barely get a pair of pliers on them but then have no room or leverage to work them off.

Anyone done this before?

 

if you're replacing, just cut em.

 

The hoses or the clamps? I don't think it'll be any easier to get the ends off once the hoses are cut off.

 

Go to autozone and get a set of long snout 45dregree needle nose pliers

Cut them with a razor blade. If you try to pry or pull them off you risk damaging the heater core

 

I've got long handled 45 *and* 90 degree pliers, hasn't really helped me get to the hose clamp tabs at all.

So you're saying to wiggle the hose clamp off and then cut the hose off? That seems reasonable. I'm just stuck at step 1, haha

 

What the kid said. Once you get the clamps off cut the hoses, if you try to clamp and twist you'll end up bending the pipe which woudl result in you replacing the core. Not fun but not easy, time consuming.

 

Of all the times ive done it on a d16 I think the best process is to put a towel over the valve cover and then lay across the valve cover to reach the hoses

You can spray the clamps with wd40 or something to help lubricate them, the first time you clamp them you want to clamp to move them in the easiest direction to get to them, not to just remove them.

I believe one way I did it was to slide the clamps all the way back and cut the hoses vertically to peel them back from the pipe. Once you have the hoses cut and removes its easier to make clamp wiggle foreward

I have bent/distorted a heater core pipe on my last one. It was not fun to do the job 3 times

 

What I ended up doing:

• Cut the hoses short with a knife
• I removed the water valve completely since it opened up a lot of routes to get to the hose connections at the firewall
• after cutting them short, I slit them up to the clamps and broke them open
• hosed the clamps down with silicone spray (by which I really mean just a little toot--a lot came out)
• It was now a lot easier to get the clamps off (I tried 90 degree pliers, 45 degree pliers and channelocks, can't remember which was the best but I got them off)
• With the clamps off, slit the hoses the rest of the way and then "unwrap" them from the heater core pipes

I did indeed bend one of the heater core pipes but after some other unsuccessful methods I found the trick of sticking a 10mm deep socket in and pushing+turning it. Got it reasonably close to round again. Since the rim of the pipe was a bit chewed up at that point I filed and sanded around the front and the outside just a little to avoid tearing up the hose as I put it on.

New hoses and clamps, no leaks yet!

 

here's to hoping it doesn't leak in the future.

 

I did something similar, except I just stabbed a set of needle nose pliers in the hole to make it round again

 

The hoses I replaced were so well sealed that one of the hoses I didn't replace immediately sprung a leak XD

(or I was sloppy while holding the utility knife and accidentally poked it).

 

Which is why you replace all 3 at the same time.

 

All 3? I count 9 coolant hoses on this car (3 heater, two radiator, bypass hose, 3 small ones to the throttle body/iacv)

I replaced all three heater hoses and the lower radiator hose (upper radiator hose was replaced a year or two ago). It was the bypass hose that sprung a leak.

 

9 sounds about right.

Ive always used the eBay silicon hose kits and never had a single issue with any brand. For $50 you cant beat that deal

 

Heater hose has 3....unless we're not talking about the heater hose no more.

 

I replaced all three heater hoses. The leak sprung in the bypass hose.

When I said "one of the hoses I didn't replace" I was referring to hoses other than the heater hoses. Sorry for the confusion.