FC-chan

Arrgh! My hoses haven’t been changed ever!

Well that’s what it looks like from the placement of the hose clamps. I couldn’t get to them from the bottom of the car, and couldn’t see them from the engine bay. So I had my non-technical friend use the pliers from the engine bay and I held the droplight and guided the pliers from under the car. With both of our tugging (he has guy muscles, I have girl-size hands), and some alarming flex from my radiator, we got the bottom clamp from the lower radiator hose and one of the (many) heater hoses where it attaches to the radiator before my back started giving me too many “Hey! Stop that!” twinges. At this rate, it’ll be two or three weeks to change my damn hoses… And another thing, my geek friend still has more hand strength than I do as a pretty strong girl, just because he’s a guy. It’s so not fair.

</rant>

…Sorry, just had to bitch to someone…This is the first time I’ve done anything more complicated than change my oil or brakes, and it’s frustrating. I didn’t think changing hoses would BE complicated, but then…I love my FC, I really do, but this weekend I had my first moment of “Dammit why do I have this Thing!” It passed, but made me feel very discouraged. That and the parts guys gave me the wrong damn hoses and I’m not going back without a hose in my hands to SHOW them what I need.

YearsOfDecay

Use a dremel tool and just cut the clamps.

FC-chan

hmmmmmm....It's not like I'm not going to throw them away anyway......thanks!

YearsOfDecay

since you are changing the hoses, use a utility (razor) knife and just slit then down the middle where they attach to the metal parts, then use a screwdriver to peal them off as they will most likely be stuck on like glue!