Rad hose keeps getting eaten

[Wh33lhop]

So the driver's side coolant hose (from the T-stat to the lower radiator) seems like it keeps getting eaten up by the alternator pulley. Twice now it's torn a hole in the damn thing and these hoses are twenty bucks a pop if you get a good deal on them.

First off, has anyone else had this problem? The clearances are rather tight, and I suppose I could just not fit it all the way onto the thermostat (to give more room between the hose and the alternator), but maybe my motor mounts are dead or something? This is the second time this has happened in 2 months. Or, could this be caused by a bad thermostat causing overheating and boiling my coolant? I'm only running distilled water right now as I'm flushing the coolant.

Second off, right now my car's sitting with no coolant and a hole in that hose. What would be a good temporary fix, some sort of high-temp waterproof tape or something? If I get another hose it will just happen again; I need to find the problem and I don't want to keep blowing money on hoses until I do (plus, replacing them is kind of a bitch).

[Van Westervelt]

#1, could be your engine mounts

#2, could be your trans mounts

#3, and most likely, you do not have the bracket holding the rad hose to the frame rail. That is designed to hold it out of the way, but 90% of people take it off, or bend it out of the way at some point.

[Wh33lhop]

#1, could be your engine mounts

#2, could be your trans mounts

#3, and most likely, you do not have the bracket holding the rad hose to the frame rail. That is designed to hold it out of the way, but 90% of people take it off, or bend it out of the way at some point.

Gotcha. I actually still have the bracket and it's still installed, but it's sort of bent out of shape (doesn't hold the hose very well). I will remove the hose, get a new hose and bend it back into shape.

Thanks a lot, hopefully this solves it as the hose just blew on the way back from blowing a lot of money on suspension parts and I don't feel like replacing all the damn drivetrain mounts right now.

[AndrewBird]

More then likely it is motor and/or tranny mounts. That's why he put them as 1 and 2 and the bracket as 3. They were in order of likelihood.

What is happening is your motor is shifting around while driving and making the alternator hit the hose.

[balooshinakus]

Yeah replace motor/tranny mounts if you don't know when they were done. I had the same issue and my mounts were TERRIBLE. One of my tranny mounts had broken in half and the other one was extremely gummy. Motor mounts were a little better, but still in extremely shitty shape.

[Wh33lhop]

Hmm. Think if I mend it with aluminum tape it'll hold for a few hours? Not really sure what else to use at this point besides a new hose, and I need to be able to drive it tonight, can't really get new mounts yet.

[cobraken]

Man, I had this issue!

I think I replaced my radiator hose like 3 times before I figured out what the issue was!

I thought my belts were to long! geess

Both my motor mounts and tranny mounts were bad!