Maintenance Note

September 5, 2015

A couple of days ago, while driving home, a sizeable cloud of steam appeared from under the right side of the hood. Turns out that one of the little (24 year old, never touched) coolant hoses to the intake manifold was jetting a healthy geyser from a pinhole.

Starting from these notes, I ordered up the 4 bypass hoses: Turns out that 261A is the one that is replaced by the turbo coolant lines, but it was late when I was ordering, and I'd rather spend an extra $7 on the certainty that I've ordered an extra hose than take a chance that I mis-interpreted something and have to spend and additional $7 on shipping, delay repairs for several days and still have an extra hose. Later, I also ordered:

My online dealer of choice these days is Rosenthal Arlington Mazda in Virginia. The local dealer was telling me things like: "You can't get those clamps anymore, just use screw-types." Yeah, screw...

I'm not sure if I want to mess with the cap just now, but I am sure I want one on hand if it starts jetting water like the small hose did last week. Having the new clamps really made the hose replacement easier - probably worth the $20 just for not having to exercise Zen master patience in dealing with the existing clamp removal, plus the little "keeper" pieces on the new clamps make installation tremendously easier.

Replacement was pretty easy, the fact that I could brutally murder the existing clamps made things quite a bit easier in 2 or 3 places. I opted to rotate the upper radiator hose out of the way and unplug 2 electrical connectors to get better access (you'll know the ones when you get in there.) If you prefer building ships in bottles, you might get away with less disassembly. The hardest part of reassembly was actually replacement of the upper radiator hose clamp - the little clamps with the keeper clips could be put in place by removing the keepers with bare fingers - I don't know if tools are recommended for these or not, I did 6 of them, only lost one clip to the darkness, and didn't lose any blood in the process. If you do get bitten by one, it's not likely to be more than a minor flesh wound.

The existing hoses were stuck on pretty firmly, they responded well to a twist and gently pull approach, some were easier to push off after a bit of twist and pull, none fell apart and no cutting was required. Putting on the new hoses required some soap-lube and a little stretching with insertion of needlenose pliers. The clamps snapped into place just like a factory assembly job.

Last updated September 2015