Reply to "Erica needs to get hosed....."

OK, back on track here....heater hoses.....

I call this my "Oh am I glad that I got this out of my system...." ....or "I can't believe there was this much sh*t in there..." or "Not exactly panning for gold...but it felt a lot like it!"

I rehab'd my heater water valve with the Napa O-ring suggested in the article on Pantara place about rebuilding said valve.

I deviated on the hose thing...... 18mm is only .060 larger than a 5/8" hose....and the 5/8" hose will stretch if warmed up a bit and lubed with either some silicone grease (ONLY IF YOUR HOSE BARBS ARE STILL GOOD!!!) or water if the barbs are not so good.....

I have one kinda good and one that isn't there any more.

I bought a single NAPA 9808 hose, about $13 and made the two hoses for under the heater out of it.

I cut the 90 degree portion about 1-1/2" off of the short side to attach to the heater valve (which is undersized at .600"...) and then cut the length as needed to hit the LH heater pipe.

The remaining straight piece of hose is a trim to fit the RH heater pipe to the belled section of the heater core sticking out of the LH side of the heater box. Belled section is 5/8" and is about 2" long, then reduces to about 3/8" and goes up and right turns into the heater box.

So, fast forward to today.... when I was removing the old hose sections, I found LOTS of chunk-o-rust in them....making me question to things...1) previous maintenance by owners, 2) what is still in the various parts of the heater system, and 3) I know, I said two....how can I clean this out!!?

Today, I hooked up a garden hose to one of those universal "engine flush" "T" fittings that was in one of the water hoses from the engine. I plugged the other portion of that hose, and also the end of the other hose. (One hose to water pump...one hose to block.) I left them connected to the under car tubes....in hopes of flushing out the tubes AND perhaps some of the garp that may have reached the heater core...fingers crossed.

I pressurized the whole affair by carefully turning the water on....keep in mind that some community water systems can have some SERIOUS PSI pressures.....and the LAST THING I WANT is to blow the snot out of the heater core!

So, water turned on.....I get a dribble of crap out of the other hose...dark black water....ugh. But a dribble...some coughs and spits...then nothing much but the hose started to swell...not good. Water off.

I had a second one of those water flush parts (actually an unused complete set that I found somewhere) that gave me the female to female adapter to fit my garden hose to this mess, and another "T" fitting.

I reversed the garden hose to the other hose, plugged/unplugged the two hoses accordingly and proceeded to push water back into the system via the hose that was previously was the drain.

More dribble, coughing, spitting, dark garpy water and chunks...big chunks...then the flow became less than a dribble and the hoses started swelling.

Water off..release pressure, mop up mess on floor, swap hoses again....and again and again and again... Occasionally I could hear water gurgling in different sections below the console..... At one point when there was still little flow, I squeezed the rubber hose right where it attaches to the under car tube...and I felt LOTS of crunching...but I heard stuff moving....well it plugged up the "T" now. Removed the "T" hit the pressure again and started squeezing....got LOTS of crap!!!! Yea!.....

Proceed to swap pressured water back and forth several times more until water was running clean into my drain pan!

I double checked how much flow my hose was putting out for opening the on/off valve on the house for about a third of a turn....well it wasn't much flow. SO...I upped it to about a turn and a half to two turns....and got a good flow, but not full blast....about what I would expect out of a heater hose...good solid flow.

Ran this level of water back and forth a few times and got more garp, but it cleaned up quickly!

Below is a pic of my results....clean water! Clean water in pan and clean coming out of hose!
Will post more pic's of results....
S