TJS, have you installed the silicon hoses on your B4?
I was back in the garage today, working through a laundry list of to-do items on my project B4. One of my tasks was to replace the B4's old coolant hoses with the new silicon ones.
My mistake was assuming that I could install these new hoses with the OEM Suzuki hose clamps, just swapping the original clamps over to the new hoses.
Everything went great until I tried to put the spring clamps (Suzuki calls them "clips" in the parts diagram) back onto the hoses that run from the top of the cylinder head up to the thermostat housing. I'm talking about the wide, black clamps you have to "pinch open" with pliers.
This was when I discovered the new silicon hoses are just a bit thicker than the OEM hoses. I found that once I had the hose slipped down over the connector on the cylinder head it was impossible to squeeze those spring type clamps far enough to get them onto the new hoses. I tried every way I could think of to get the clamp over the hose but nothing worked.
I was lucky, though, because I had some extra Suzuki hose clamps available in my extra parts box (from a replacement radiator + thermostat housing that I bought off Ebay). In place of the now too small spring type clamps I substituted two of the clamps Suzuki puts on the other end of those hoses. These are the regular screwdriver-tighten style clamps.
It was a tight fit down there in the spark plug valley of the camshaft cover because of the big metal bump of the clamp's tightening mechanism. They just barely fit next to the Coil-on-Plug stick for cylinder #1 and #4. Also, getting them snugged up on the hose was a bit awkward.
So in the end everything is good. I filled up the coolant and ran the bike to warm it up and get the air out of the system.
I just didn't see that little bit of difficulty coming.
Topic: Silicone Hoses (Read 14324 times)