Technical flexhoses

im curious...i have seen tons and tons of flexhoses on finished cars on here...i was always told flexhoses are okay for temporary but if left on they put stresd on the radiatior inlet and cause cracks...is that true or a myth? i have seen the cracks but maybe they were unrelated?

 

It's true.............................................................depending on a lot of other factors!

 

Flex hoses are traditional...

 

nothing looks as half assed as "universal" hoses on an otherwise nice looking engine bay. it just seems to say "too lazy to find the right hose"

 

Never thought about it but maybe so. That said the ones I have removed had conformed themselves to the correct shape. But it may take awhile..

Check out the ones that came on my heap, look like antlers! I replaced them with something a little more appealing, but it took a lot more hose clamps!

 

What he said ^^^^^^

 

Seriously, flex hoses were traditional, particularly with engine swaps. Molded curve hoses were usually dealer items, most parts houses and particularly service stations stocked flex hoses as their primary and sometimes only choice. Remember, back in those days a flex hose would work on 90+% of the cars, not like the cars that started showing up in the mid '60s where the molded hoses had so many bends in them a universal hose couldn't be made to fit without rubbing somewhere.

That a flex hose is generally inferior to a molded curve hose I won't deny; I'm just pointing out that they were a traditional look and typical of the era.

 

thats a fair explanation! traditional yes, not the best looking or functioning.... i started thinking abiut it afted seeing the 15th sweet hot rod with a simple 90 degree bend but it had a flex hose. i think i will break from that tradition personally but i can dig it.

 

There are different grades of flex hose, too. If you use the lighter duty ones, they don't have much bending resistance, and don't seem to damage radiators. If you use the heavy duty industrial strength hoses, then you might want to be careful. Also, make sure you use the correct length, so you're not having to force the hose into place.

I've been using flex hoses on my "old" builds for several years. I have a few extras now, and they end up getting used, even if only temporarily, on other quickie projects. They really are universal.

 

I have them on my car, stick with a name brand like Gates or Dayco and they hold up. My upper hose attaches to a swivel water neck, so the hose goes on without a lot of stress on it. The stress of tight angles is what kills them.

 

What "Crazy Steve" said....

 

Most of the ones I've encountered were so dried out and hardened that they gave me a distrust of them. I will look at them a little more sympathetically now....

 

I have a flex hose up top. My lower rad hose is real piece of work, 3 pieces of rad hose spliced together with exhaust pipe to get the 3 curves. Both hoses fine 8 years now. My fitment requirements are not of this planet.

 

When I did some radiator and hose adapting you can bend a coat hanger to the rough shape of what you need then if you are on good terms with your local parts place and know the inlet and outlet sizes ask them to let you browse the hose rack for a close fit,should be able to find a suitable configuration in pre-molded.

 

For some of us, the point is to NOT use a hose that is premolded to fit a later model car. But it's OK if you don't get that.

Sent from my Trimline

 

More difficult to find those jobbers these days. You have to give the guy working the computer make and model even if you're only trying to buy a air freshener.

 

I used them at one time but not any more.. I 'll go to a good auto parts store and look at them hanging an usually pick the one with the most bends. Then either get EMT or plumbing drains and use what I want with the cut rubber ends.

 

If you go look at pics from 'back in the day', you'll find flex hoses on 90% of the cars, and if a engine swap is involved it would approach 100%. The few exceptions you'd see still weren't likely to use molded curve, these were the guys that used short pieces of straight hose with metal tubing in between with the needed bends in the tube, generally on flathead Fords. If you're trying to 'anchor' your build in the '50s/'60s era, flex hoses can be a critical detail.

Molded curve hoses didn't become popular on rods/customs until the '70s, which by that time were being stocked pretty much everywhere because of the demand from late models.

 

I'm not a flex hose fan at all.. my buddy has two old NAPA coolant hose books... What is cool about these books they have actual pictures of the hoses and part numbers... works great on old cars..

 

They may be "traditional", but they shore is ugly!

 

x2 ^

 

**clic pic**

 

I was taught, and subsequently believe, that Flex hoses do not allow the engine coolant to flow as efficiently as molded hoses. That said, start with flex hose and if the engine temperature is only slightly too high, try the molded hoses. If the engine temperature is way too high, fix the problem because molded hoses are not going help that much (if at all).

 

I don't know about the inlet but I could be led to believe it puts a strain on the water pump having to constantly push the coolant passed 56 speedbumps.

 

Compared with the restrictions presented by the tiny cooling tubes in the radiator and the rough casting finish inside the block/heads/intake (not to mention all the obstructions from all the interior bits), the 'restriction' from the 'bumps' in flex hoses is nothing...

 

I don't care for the looks of them, years ago I used one on a flat bed truck as the fill hose. Soon as you hit the trigger on the gas pump, it'd shoot right back out at you. There wasn't no sharp bends either.

 

I thought flex hoses were a requirement on a hot rod? All the cool cats had them in the magazine pics.
While using metal tubes between rubber hoses might look better, you are creating two possible leak points at every joint. I’ll stick to my flex hoses with just two clamps and possible leak points instead of four or more clamps and possible leak points.

 

Damn, when I was doing mine everyone on the HAMB was raggin' on flex hoses.

But one advantage I have had with the chrome tubes has been the ability to disconnect at the tube, which slide off with little effort, and not have to twist and tug on my oddball cut down Cadillac radiator, which has to come out to get to the distributor.

 

My hot rodding has been a mixture of hot rods as we know them here on HAMB and oval track racing. In the oval racers, if you took a look at exposed engines in the pits after a race was finished, you could see curved hoses blown up like balloons from the extreme pressures in the coolant system from hot engines and radiator caps shimmed with an extra gasket for more pressure. Flex hoses withstood these extreme pressures much better than the molded hoses.
To me there's nothing wrong with flex hoses and quite a bit "right" about them.