Heater Supply Hose Replacement

One fine and cold day I drove to work and as I backed into my parking slot I noticed some drips on the pavement in front of me. I got out and sure enough I could smell the antifreeze cooking on the engine and the steam that almost always accompanies a radiator fluid leak. I though to myself, "why can't these kinds of problems happen when it's pleasant outside instead of when Oklahoma is trying to immitate Canada."

It was too dark to look at the problem and I thought I'd look at it when I got home. But one of the other employees came in and told me about a puddle under my truck. Puddle, sounds worse than drops. So at lunch I went out and found the leak. It was the heater supply hoses. Only one was leaking. But as it is said, every time you work on something if you can replace something else you might as well do it and save yourself the trouble of doing the job again. And in this example the Rover is disabled while you are repairing so replace them both. The drive home was fun with fluid leaking out. The hole in the hose directed the leaking fluid directly onto the distributor making it's ability to get the spark to the plugs a bit challenged. This also causes me to wonder how to make the vehicle more water proof.

Normally I would just go down to the auto parts store and while holding the offending and failed hose I would ask to see "the rack". The rack is the collection of hoses all auto part stores have in the back. I would then get a hose that was "close enough for rock-n-roll" and finish the job. This time I looked at the hoses and while I thought I could get one of the hoses, but the other's bends possed a problem so I ordered them from Rovers North, number 29 and 30. And as I was worried that gallons of coolant were being lost I had them overnighted along with some brake pads.

I called in the next day for work and surprisingly the weather warmed up nicely into the 50s and I started on the project. I thought I'd tear it down as I waited for the UPS driver and thusly minimize my time. The last time I did this the parts did not come and I was left with a disabled vehicle until the next day. So hoping against a delivery catastrophe I got started.

I started by removing the hose clamps. Normally I never reuse a hose clamp, especially not 12 year old ones. But I risked it this time. I removed clamp 1 and clamp 2. It quickly became evident that I would need to remove some other things to get to the other hose clamps and ultimately to the hoses to remove them.

I removed the upper radiator hose. Then back to the hoses I removed clamp 3. I decided that the bracket that holds the ignition wires to the starboard side would need to be removed. So to this point I have removed several things. In this image. You can see A. the hose clamp is up and out of the way as will the other that is underneath the letter D in the picture. The electric plugs B, to the air conditioning fan temperature sender have been removed. This sender has failed and you can read about it's replacement on the Temp Sensors Page. C is pointing to the temp indicator plug. It is a single spade and is for the "idiot light". D is the place the vacuum advance hose connection point.

I decided that the only way to get the hoses out was if I had some play in the heater supply pipes. They carry the coolant back across the engine to the hoses that feed the heater core. There is an air hose into the plenum that needed to be removed so the hoses could move freely. It turned out I was right. The only way I got them out was moving the supply pipes up.

As you can see in this image the fluid loss is very high. You should purchase plenty of antifreeze/coolant before you start the job. This is a pic of the failed hose. I could see that it had been cut down once before instead of replaced. I have done this many times when the hole in the hose is close to the end of the hose but eventually it will be necessary to replace it.

As I freed the hose and placed the drip pan under the truck the UPS guy arrived with my parts! How happy I was, perfect timing. I was able to snap a pic of him driving away. The second hose was the most difficult to remove and I tore up my arm trying to remove it. It would have been no problem at all to remove if the distributor was not in. Here it is and it will go on the shelf as a replacement if a situation ever arrises that I or a friend need it. Big L hose.

The truly international trade in Land Rover parts is never seen by those of us in the States. Unless you have traveled over seas you never can grasp the fact that these vehicles are on nearly every continent. Check out the package. The part was made in Poland and there are 9 languages on the outside of this package describing the part. I wonder if the translations are more accurate in the other languages. The English part description should read, "a pain in the ass hose buried deep in the front of the Rover".

I began to reassemble the Rover with the new parts. A note on the reassemble it is obvious to some but maybe not to others. You will need to take this apart again someday so line up the hose clamps so they can be easily gotten too. Also as I mentioned before, replace your hose clamps too. Reusing them is fine but you will break one. As I did. I had a spare on the shelf so I was okay this time.

Your gonna need to replace the coolant/antifreeze you lost. Properly filling the system will insure you don't have any air pockets. You must fill from this pipe on top of your engine. It is the highest point in the system. I would prefer that this plug was not plastic. My pipe has some problems down inside and it eats about half of the threads on the plug when it is reinserted. I was able to clean the threads out once but I was not able to get all the threads clean. I will someday replace this plastic piece with a medal one. It doesn't have the same thread pattern as the plug on the radiator.

The tools you will need are surprisingly few. A couple of screwdrivers which I used mostly as pry bars. Various pliers used to pull the electrical connections I couldn't reach with my fingers and to recover stuff I dropped. Vise-grip to remove the plastic fill plug. Three sizes of sockets and an extension. And you can see the failed hose clamp I tightened too much.

This was a 3 hour operation. On the Difficulty Scale it rates as a 2. It could be easier only if I would have removed the distributor. I know nothing about that system and thus opted to work around it. This would not have changed the difficulty only increasing the difficulty due to the fact that now you have to refit your distributor. Pulling all the hoses and connections to get to the failed hoses comprised the greatest amount of time next to the large L hose removal. This was the most difficult part of the job by far. Take pics and you'll get it back together no problem.

Thanks for reading and happy Rovering.