Crash80

Why is it when you go to the parts store to get belts or hoses, you never have exactly what came off the car? And, I bet if I went and bought...say an upper radiator hose from three different auto parts stores, all supplied with the same info. about my car, they would all be slightly different. I have heard the same story on belts as well. I find this to be totally aggravating. I know...take the part to be replaced with you just to be sure you are getting the right part but how hard can it be to get some sort of uniformity in this area of parts? We are talking Chevy parts here, not Fiat, Alfa Romeo, or some other foreign animal. :rant:

What brought this rant on is the fact I have spent more time trying to find an upper radiator hose for my '80, that will not be up against the alternator bracket or up against a belt, than it would have taken to get the job done. Finding a suitable part for a Chevy should not be this difficult!

JJ Deuce

I thought this was going to be an interesting observation. :jester

Crash80

That's it pal, now you have to buy all the beer on the 30th! You got the pipes on yet?

markdtn

Well. NAPA and CarQuest use Gates so they should be the same. Auto Zone uses Goodyear and Kelly Springfield which are probably the same since Goodyear owns Kelly. I don't know about Advance. I think Pep Boys uses Gates. I think the shape of these change over time to broaden what they will fit. I know I have removed a Gates hose and replaced it with the same part number that looked slightly different. I think it had been modified to fit more applications. Some times you have to cut some off, for example an 89 IROC upper hose works with most Tuned-Port swaps. unmodified it has an extra 90 near the T-stat housing that has to be removed for a TPI car-even the IROC.

page62

It'll be 6 months before he gets the pipes on!!! Now that we've started tearing things out of his engine compartment, it's finally started the "one thing leads to another" process :yesnod:

Oh, belts and hoses. Each manufacturer's product will have a slightly different shape. They're reverse-engineered from OEM. In fact, even OEM products will vary if different suppliers are used...

JJ Deuce

both you guys can buy your own damn beers. It'll be more than six months before I get the car back together, and I need to conserve any money I can to spend on machine work, paint, cleansers, and more parts!

Larsson

I feel the exact same problem, the last owner had done a perfect bubba installation with the upper radiator hose, it was just to hope that it would hold while driving. So I bought a new one, had to go to the same shop three times to get a hose that worked with my car :(
Still haven't got a good solution but It'll have to do for now.

goinbroke

I just went through the same thing on an upper rad. hose on a stock 74. I got (and returned) hoses from 3 different auto parts. All of them were short.......way too short. This is a low milage car that has had neither the engine or radiator ever removed. O'Reilly finally let me go behind the counter to find something that would match. I managed to find one that was an exact match....Gates # 20416. I had them look that # up on their computer to see what it was supposed to fit...........and I'm not even gonna say what it was. :nonod: ......but it fit!!!

Paul L

You will find that most belts now are metric: in mm rather than inches. Best to measure the old with the new.

page62

Hey Jeff, you know what my bumper sticker says:
Will work for :cheers: