Small molded rubber hoses have been around a long, long time but they pretty much exploded on the automotive scene in the early 90’s.
Heater hoses, bypass hoses, emission hoses especially, you will find them all over an engine anymore.
For a long time they were a Dealer Only item and really expensive. Eventually regular auto parts stores began stocking them but with so many different car makes and so many different applications, nobody could possibly stock them all and often they had to be special ordered.
Well I just came across this Youtube video of a guy showing how you can custom make virtually any kind you want with these spring kits you can buy, a heat gun, a clean rag and a screw type hose clamp.
It’s pretty obvious that English isn’t his first language but it is quite easy to understand what he is saying.
Zap strap would prolly work too! Great vid…did not know this hack!
Hey, when parts become scarce and or very expensive, I can see a cottage industry popping up to service those types of parts. The fact you can do it yourselves even if it takes awhile. All we all have is time, it depends on how you spend it or make the man richer…
I will say you want to do as a business get rolls of hose now!
I really do need about 20″ min. of different diameter as running at moment 3 vehicles.
Guy did a nice job and give him credit for publishing mistake instead of editing to just show th enew way he did it,cool info.
Sigh…….,meant 20′.
Excellent idea for a mandrel, seen lots of pipe bending in the day
I was aware of this technique, but in metal tubing where the pipe is filled with sand and the metal induction heated until it becomes plastic/pliable and bent into shape using a U-channel that mimics the outside of the bend. Y’all get the gist of it.
Back in the 70s I did a lot of refrigeration work. I had those spring sets for bending copper tubing. They work great. I probably bought them at a refrigeration supply house or through Harry Alter or McMaster-Carr.
Never thought of them for rubber hose, never had a need.
About 25 years ago I spent a week or two consulting for a plant in Oscoda that made OEM hoses for the auto makers. They had these big aluminum panels, perhaps 4X8 with pins and shapes. They would take a piece of hose, put a spring in it, arrange it around the pins to the proper form. They’d have a bunch of tubes on each panel.
Then the panel went into an oven, was heated, cooled, the hoses taken off, springs removed and the hose was ready to go.
Not much different from what this guy is doing.
THANK YOU, PHIL!!
I’ve got four or five molded hoses on my Supra that haven’t been available for 20+ years. I was going to get the right size hose and just try and snake pieces in there, but this will allow me to mold the hoses so the look way better than just cramming some hose on the engine.
yeah, I have the same problem with my 94 4runner. lots of weird shaped hoses that you can’t find anywhere. now I have to dig out my tubing benders or maybe find some smaller size benders. like 3/16 or so.
I wonder if this would work with silcone (?) hoses ?