Noizemaker

So yeah, a couple months ago I bought my car. Noticed when I got it home that there was some coolant spray around the engine bay. Last week I said enough, and ordered the hoses planning to do the upper and lower swap. Through a complex series of screwups and unavailabilities, I ended up the night before a track day throwing on a used, 130k hose I borrowed from WestSideBilly's old F20 because it was better than mine.

I looked at the job, and shook my head KNOWING it'd be a bitch. So, i did what any resourceful 21st century man would do... I WENT TO THE INTERNETS!

... where I promptly struck out and got stuck muddling through it anyhow. Figured no time like the present to post a how-to while it was still fresh in my mind. This howto presumes you're ONLY changing the top hose. I need to go back and do the lower eventually but i'm sore and tired enough tonight to say F-THAT! Also, I reused my coolant since it was nearly new, and honda premix at that. Feel free to use new coolant instead of pumping the old back in.

Difficulty: 3/10
Annoyance: 8/10
Beers: 1 during, one celebration.
Time: 90 minutes, figure 45 if i do it again.

Tools needed:
A BUCKET!
a fluid pump with a LONG hose at either side (optional, but awesome!)
11" 15* offset pliers.
4" vice-grip pliers.
10mm ratchet or endwrench.

1: Park car on ramps/stands/whatever. It saves your back, and you'll need it.
2: Go get dinner while car cools.
3: Pop off rad cap on cold motor. Pump fluid out of top tank of radiator into A BUCKET!.
4: Unclamp upper hose. Relocate fluid pump line to upper radiator hose, and pump out everything to the thermostat.
5: Keep pump handy, every few minutes you'll get a little more fluid out of the thermostat area as it drains from the block.
6: unbolt, unclip and relocate the wiring harness over that corner of the motor, after unplugging it from both places on the intake manifold. Get more fluid out of the hose.
6a: Unbolt the bracket that the cruise cable routes through, you'll need the hand space.
7: Unclamp and relocate the little spaceship breather line (egr?) as well as the brake booster line.
8: Release and relocate both the small vac lines that lead under the fuel rail cover.
9: Reach under the intake manifold and familiarize yourself by touch with all the hoses down there.
10: Unclip any hoses clipped to the upper rad hose.
11: Come in from the backside (that's what she said! hey-OH!) with the offset pliers and work them as far down the hose as you can.
12: Swear. A lot.
13: Swear more.
14: When you get as far as the offset will reach, come in from the backside with the 4" vicegrips. Clamp the hoseclamp open with the vicegrips, and gently, GENTLY work the clamp and the pliers down the hose to the other side and off the hose. Leave it clamped to the hoseclamp.
15: Remove the radiator hose. I got lucky and in moving the hose clamp, I moved enough coolant around under the skin of the hose that it easily broke loose. Cut it if you have to though.
16: if you're a glutton for punishment, now's an AWESOME time to replace the thermostat.
17: Take the new hose and place it on the outlet.
18: Feed the vicegrip and hoseclamp back down the length of the hose CAREFULLY. Make sure the vicegrip release arm is pointed towards the side of the car.
19: If you get lucky, the vicegrip will clear the bead on the thermostat housing. If it doesn't, make sure you position the clamp about 15 degrees away from TDC, towards the block. If you leave it straight up, the offset pliers won't reach it.
20: With either the vicegrip or the offset pliers, work the hose back into place.
21: Replace the hose and clamp to the radiator side of the assembly.
22: Replace all the wiring.
23: Remove the rubber bleeder cap from the coolant line behind the head, right behind where you were working.
24: pump the coolant back into the top tank of the radiator, being mindful of the air in system. The A BUCKET! full of coolant should now be empty again.
25: stuff rags under bleeder and start car.
26: When coolant (not air!) starts coming out of the bleed port, shut car off, and remove rags.
27: Replace coolant cap and bleeder cap.
28: Make sure you remove ALLLLL THE TOOLS you used from the engine bay.
29: Warm the car up, check coolant level, and bottle level.
30: Drink that second beer like a boss.

PICS! Useless ones, but pics!
Here's eveything you need to remove/unplug. You're gonna hate life back here, remove as much as you can.


Use the vicegrips to keep the hoseclamp compressed. If you use it's built-in open-hold feature, you'll never get it to snap closed. Note the direction of the grips, if you face them the other way, they WILL hit the engine. Use the offset pliers to close them enough for the shortie vicegrips to reach.


Apropos of nothing at all, APR makes an awesome tool tray for our cars. <3 APR. It works way better at holding tools than the stock piece! In this pic, you can see the fluid pump i used. it's worth EVERY penny of the 12.00 i spent at Harbor Freight for it.

Noizemaker

Oh yeah, and get this. it turns out my upper radiator hose was fine. Crispy, but fine.

The leak was from the NPT port that I thought was a fan standoff next to the hose barb on my Koyo radiator. I was NOT AMUSED.

phaeton

For future reference for others, I just replaced my top radiator hose, and was able to do so only removing the smallest hose and the medium sized hose in your first picture. I will also add that to make things easier, I replaced the p.i.t.a. OE clamp with a similarly sized screw clamp purchased from my local Honda dealership. Since it could be put on and moved into place very easily, then tightened properly from the back with a long flathead screwedriver or 10mm socket and extension, I feel that it's a much better solution for ease of replacement, should the need for it ever come again. I took the car on an extensive test drive after finishing, and there is no leakage to speak of from this different type of clamp. I believe it was $0.48 at the dealership, and I know it saved me from a ton of time and headache reinstalling the old clamp on the new hose.

rmfris

Great information!

Billman250

Make sure your heat is very hot after hose install, this way you know its safe to drive.

I caution anyone against using screw clamps, they are almost guaranteed to leak over time. They rely on crushing the rubber to maintain a tensioned seal, and this seal will be lost after enough heat/cool cycles. Over 25 years of working on cars, the amount of leaking screw clamps I have seen is in the hundreds.

Nothing is more bulletproof than a proper sized spring clamp.

mattstryfe

I wanted to share this with everyone as I replaced my top radiator hose earlier today.

First, the coolant bleed guide. (Author: Billman250)

Fortunately, I didn't get much air in the line. I assume it's because I had the front end jacked up. *shrug*

Second, I was able to slip the new clamp on with ease by doing this. It saved me the pain of using offset pliers. It also allowed me to slip the clamp exactly where i wanted. After that, simply snip the zip tie. (keep your fingers out of the way).
[attachment=52010:unnamed.jpg]


Ignore the filthy engine bay. It's winter, I'm in virginia, and it's the first day above 30 in weeks!

S2KCER

Man, thatsbalot if trouble for just the upperhose...what about the 2nd hose? I assume thats even more of a b*tch to work on lol

mattstryfe

yea, the problem is getting a tool to fit in where the hose connects to the manifold. If you have an air-pump delete and take the time to detach some things it's still pretty tight. Especially if you have man-hands.

Getting the old one off was harder than putting the new one on.