Not fun to change. The new Gates hose comes with the heater hose attached. Looks like I need to remove the lower heater hose to get to the one I am changing. Has anybody done this job? Any tricks to consider?
Since no one else has chimed in:
1. Be _extremely_ careful in anything you might do in touching any of the black plastic
parts associated with the
thermostat housing. The plastic gets brittle with heat and age and is prone to cracks and breakage (by contrast, the true ‘rubber’
parts seem to last forever).
2. Consider 74 Harley’s advice. As soon as one of the black plastic cooling
parts fail, the others are probably not far behind (and also the white plastic degas bottle).
3. Make sure you have a tool like this:
https://www.autozone.com/wrenches-p...50001289970&CADevice=c&gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds
(if you already have one of these tools, then you know what I’m talking about).
4. If all you’re changing is the upper hose, it may be easier to just keep the existing small heater hose and save the one that Gates attached for some other time. It’s not hard to disconnect the top end of that small hose from the rad hose ass’y once the large ends are off from the
radiator and t’stat housing (reread tip 1), as you can then rotate the hose ass’y for better access.
5. Follow the factory procedure for refilling and bleeding the system (the steps are not obvious if you’ve not done this on a retro bird before). The factory system works well if your cooling system has no unrepaired leaks, but can be frustrating if the system still has even a tiny pressure leakage.
6. Reread tip number 1. The tall housing that sits on the top front of the engine can be a bear to replace.
7. Check lincolnvscadillac.com for others’ experience in relation to the 2000-2002 Lincoln LS, which shares the same cooling system as the 2002 ‘Bird. Our friends with the LS cars tend to have more miles of experience on their cars, and more likely to be posting their experience in doing their own repairs.
