i don't like using those universal ribbed bend to fit hoses . i'm sure most of you know about bending a piece of wire to shape you need and comparing it to the pile hose's in the back room of your local auto parts store. but sometimes you can't find the right one , and you end up needing to join pieces of two hose with a piece of tubing i like to put a bead on the ends of the connector to help keep the hose from slipping off. i prefer to use stainlees steel tubing . the first picture show just a straight connector...not the way to do it! second picture shows a bead roller i made to but a bead on the inside of the tube.. i see mittler brothers has one available and i think ron covell sells one too third picture is the parts ready to go together.. 4th is the final result all put together..and never to slip apart last is a picture of what mittler brothers has...i'm sure it's kinda spendy , but if you have access to a lathe you couild build a tool yourself
Very good post, I just spent some time in the back of the local NAPA digging for some hoses. It is amazing how hard it is to find the right hose. A while back I needed to bead the end of a tube like you did but did not have acces to any thing that would do it. I ended up turning the voltage down and the wire speed up on the mig and welded a nice fat bead around the tube I was sliding the hose over. Then I dressed it a little and it was good to go. A little crude compared to your nice formed bead but it worked in a pinch.
You know, that right there isn't a bad idea. As long as there arent any sharp edges or stray weld spatter, I don't see why it wouldn't work out great. I'll probably use this bit of advice in the future!
Yeah it seems to work alright, I just buzzed the high top of the bead down on the belt sander and then used a die grinder with a small disc and polished it up a little just to be sure there were no burrs, sharp edges, or stray weld beads on it. The tube I did was from my fuel tank fill neck tube to my filler neck so I only had to do the one end. Hope it works for you if you need it.
There's a bead roller that Harbor Freight sells that's designed for these kinds of beads. A lot of HAMBers say it's one of the good items from HF (since we all know they have some good and some lame stuff). No personal experience, and I'm not finding it on their site right now, but it's usually pretty reasonably priced. It has a fairly shallow throat, and is made for putting beads on the ends of pipe like this. Along the lines of the original post, on smaller lines that need a rubber- to hard line connection: I often use my double-flaring tool, but only do the first half of the process, making the initial bulge on the end of the steel line. This makes a great bead for holding a rubber hose. Depending on amount of pressure/vacuum, sometimes you don't even need a hose clamp... but if you do, it grabs that much better! Great post! Thanks for sharing!
Vice grips with short pieces of solid rod and a 1/2 round welded on works pretty good. I only do it in a couple of spots. Also, I always use copper b/c its cheaper and there's probably no way I could do that to SS tubing by hand.
Excellent post. Here is a pic of a fancy stainless one my pal Randy and I tiggged up. Mine is two 90 degrees with short hose connectors.
Those ribbed hoses have always been a big pet peeve of mine.The easiest way to ruin the looks of a good looking motor is to use those UGLY ribbed fit anything rubber hoses, it always looks totally amuteur. Spending time at the Napa looking at the hoses hang on the wall or looking through the hose book or joining two hoses is the right way to go. Thanks for the great tech!
I havent re-installed them on my touring but I have some of the Gates shrink fits for it. They work really well. Cole was the first person to tell me about them. Do a search, with his name and the shrink fit Gates parts, we talked about it a couple years back. Really good post.
I don't mind the way they look, just don't use them b/c the ones they make now are ****. Nearly every traditional car built 'back then' had those ribbed hoses when they got engine conversions.
I hope nobody missed this. Use some of the left over mandrel bent tube from your exhaust and make all the bends in steel then connect with some short pieces of rubber. I have done this before and it works well.
Eggzactly my man! Mine was made with 3 small straight sections and 2 90 degree mandrel bends, left over Dairy equiptment parts really.
An even lower tech version than the weld bead is to fit 2 pop rivets (at 6 & 12 O'clock) around the edge of the steel tube. This will stop the hose pulling off when you clamp it. That's all the bead is there for - doesn't really aid the sealing.
good post. i wanted one of these hose connectors a time or two, only thing i could think of using was one of them inline hose heaters, which was tacky but came in handy in mn. i thought ribbed hoses got the job done alright... i couldnt tell the difference....she...
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