my fish is wet :(

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1974DartSwinger

1974DartSwinger

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Spent yesterday afternoon tuning up my '66 barracuda and dressing up under the hood. Got the restoration battery with green caps from Mancini's, sure looks better than the old nasty dirty one I had in there. Since I was having cooling issues I went with a new high flow 160* T-stat. Happy to say my overheating issues are solved! Went all out with the restoration hose clamps, you know, those metal rings that you should use a special clamp on but when you use vice-grips they slip off and smack your fingernail, yeah those ones ;)

Drove around town last night to some car shows on Gratiot and she's running great, no overheating, I'm happy.

Had a little tiny coolant leak from the t-stat housing, it was a crappy chrome one so I picked up a new alum one from Napa. After driving around all last night and ignoring the faint smell of coolant I thought was just the t-stat housing, I got home and realized my passenger side carpet was SOAKED! I was pretty bummed out, threw a bunch of paper towels down and came back this morning. Hoping to god my heater core didnt start leaking . . .

Came back this morning and went through 3 rolls of paper towel soaking up all that water, it even made its way back to the back seat and was running out the body drain plugs :( After a little snooping around the leak was from the heater core hoses, those stupid "restoration" hose clamps are junk! It was leaking out the hose and ran right down the inner firewall into the car. After swapping out the t-stat housing with the new one I put some worm gear clamps back on the hoses. I filled her up, took 2 gal of water . . . or 3 rolls of paper towels worth for you metric guys ;)

Thankfully it seems to be holding tight now. I was really worried there was a leak in the core but I think it was just that hose from the stupid metal clamp. Really weird how it just ran down inside the firewall. Going to grab some basement dry cans from the hardware store to stick in there for a couple days and dry her out really good. Man, there's never a dull moment with these old cars. . . at least I blew away the 5.0 mustang that tried to pick a fight with the old 'cuda on Gratiot ;)
 
I've seen coolant spray out from under a loose hose clamp and run down the outside of the firewall. The diameter of aftermarket hoses and or heater core could be the fault too .Even the gear screw clamps are subjet to leak.
My car has a metal plate with a rubber gasket there. One sheet metal screw right between the hose nipples.
 
ha ha, yep, I parted with good money on those neat old clamps. Even bought the proper plyers. They went on the shelf in short order. Shame, cause they do look cool. Is their a special installing tool? Might be cause, I`ve seen cars with these clamps with no trace of leaks.
Their is only 2 of these clamps left on my car, ironicly, the 2 heater hose @ the firewall:|
 
I got them on with vice grips but while buying the new T-stat housing at napa I picked up the correct pliers for the clamps. They have a groove for the tabs and lock to keep the clamps open while your installing them. I tried moving the clamps with the pliers closer towards the "buldge" flared end of the heater core housing as a buddy down here told me to do but it still leaked. It does bum me out, those clamps looked a hellofa lot better than the worm gears, its those little things like that make a car look good. I try to keep stuff pretty under the hood ;)

Haha, thanks Badsport . . . it was funny the punk guy almost broke his axles with wheel hop the first go from a light and then missed 2nd really bad. Then came casing me down afterwards like a rice-burner so I just stomped on the 360 and . . . .goooooodbyeeeee . . . . it was a real flash back to the highschool days cruising around Gratiot and trying to time the lights juuuuuust right so you line up with whoever you're playing around with. That was back in my old turbo dodge days- with my 1987 daytona shelby Z- ran a 2.5 turbo/intercooled, 20psi. It freaked people out cuz I had the ceramic 4 puck clutch and you could light em up going 50 just by throwing her in 2nd and side stepping the clutch at redline. That was the first car I dragged, one of those "wish I hadn't sold it" cars. Sure was a heck of a ride for only 150 cubes under the hood.
 
seems to me the newer heater hose isn't as thick as they used to be, migh be the problem...
 
Thats a thought, makes sense. . . . does anyone have some restoration/reproduction heater hoses or better yet, original ones? could compare the outside diameter with the new hoses.

I was half tempted to stick with the old school clamps and just throw a skim of RTV on the heater core outlet . . . figured it was a bad idea though so just stuck with the worm gear clamps.
 
When I used the spring type clamps, I smeared some black rtv inside the hose before I slid it on the nipple. No leaks!
 
haha . . . great minds think alike . . . did the RTV make it hard to get the hoses off again? I guess you could just razor blade them off in the future anyways, hmm . . .maybe I'll try that idea after all, thanks!
 
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