Replacing - Upper & lower rad. hose, water outlet & inlet and thermostat?

Any good video's out there on how to replace these or a few of these?

It looks like the upper outlet would be the most difficult.

Any word of wisdom?

Thank you for your advise or suggestions...

 

Just dive in. Get a good set of hose clamp pliers or channel locks. Pretty easy job really. Make sure you get a T-Stat with a jiggle valve. It will make burping the system easier, otherwise that is usually the hardest part of the job. Out of curiosity, why are you replacing the outlet and inlet? Make sure you have new gaskets if your going that far.

 

No video needed, easy to do the hard part is reaching for the beer when your ready for the next one.

BTW I have an extra lower hose for a pre-runner if you want just pay shipping or come on by. Good Luck.

 

1. Go to the dealer and buy a Genuine Toyota: Upper radiator hose; lower radiator hose; thermostat.
   
   
2. Then go to O'Reilly, Pep Boys, or Autozone (or someplace like that) and buy two gallons of Aisin 50/50 antifreeze (the pink stuff) or you can get that from Toyota too.
   
   
3. Drain the coolant out of the radiator and toss it.
   
   
4. Replace the hoses and the thermostat. I believe the jiggle valve on the thermostat goes to the 12:00 position for your 2.7L engine and if I'm wrong there, somebody else will correct me.
   
   
5. Refill the radiator with the fresh antifreeze, let the engine cool off overnight, and then top it off.
   
   
6. The entire process should take a novice about 2 hours from the time the first wrench is applied until everything has been replaced.

If you do all those things you shouldn't have to worry about coolant for 5 years, and hoses/thermostat for 10 years.

 

Do yourself a HUGE favor and just get a set of dedicated pliers for the constant torque hose clamps. Messing around with regular pliers gets maddening, and if you've ever shot one of those fuckers across the room, or into your fingers, you'll see the value in spending $20 on some pliers...

 

Yup. And the screw type hose clamps suck. I'd plan on reusing the springy ones.

 

I'm curious too. Why do you want to replace the water inlet & outlets? They are not wear items & ot would take a hell of a lot of corrosion & time to eat them up. Should last the life of the vehicle if not longer.

 

you didnt mention if it was a 4 cyl or a 6... the jiggle valve is installed at the 6 o'clock position on the V6 and at 12 o'clock on the 4 cyl.

 

Holy Cow, much appreciated TW members. I'll take a few pictures and provide additional details soon, on why I think the inlet and outlet needs to be replaced. "just my perspective"

6 cyl.

 

I went to my local dealer and wanted parts that I replaced fairly regularly on my "73 Cadillac which was the only car I owned up until about 5 years ago when I got my Tacoma. Best/ most enjoyable/funnest car I ever owned. Even though I did wrench on it all summer long so it would make it through winter. I drove that thing all over the country at 80+ miles an hour for 18 years. Got about 10mpg.

I asked the Taco dealer about radiator hoses, heater hoses, thermostat, u-joints, belts, starter, alternator etc. They said all those parts are good for the life of the vehicle. They talked me out of buying them. I still bought the upper/lower rad hoses, a thermostat and a radiator cap for the day when I do need them.

My question has always been. What is the freakin' life of the vehicle? Most Tacoma's last up to right around 300,000 miles and some, well up to 500,000+ miles. I can only assume that "the life of the vehicle" is roughly 250,000 miles by Toyota standards.

 

I've had this truck for sometime now and these leaks are new to me. Monthly (roughly) I do a complete walk around and check the basic things. Recently, I had the Radiator replaced a few months back, due to a leak. At that time they just replaced the radiator only and purged the system (I could be wrong on the purge, part). I assume new radiator and old hoses do not mix well.

I have attached a few pictures of what is happening.

I feel It is a easy fix and the most difficult part is the upper inlet if that needs to be replaced.

Thank you again TW for the word of wisdom.

 

New radiator hoses will fix that & you can just reuse the stock clamps.

 

I don't agree. I just did the timing belt 180K service on my rig (thanks Timmy the Toyotaman for a great video!); in addition to the timing belt/water pump kit, I replaced all three belts, the two radiator hoses and the two oil cooler hoses along with a new radiator cap.

 

@ BeardedTacoma

I would just thump off the dried coolant and then keep an eye on it. It is highly unusual for the radiator to spring a leak where the hose fittings enter. If the dried coolant reappears, then replace the hose using the same spring clamp.

On my 1998, I see dried coolant at the edges of the hoses from time to time. I just knock it off and don't worry about it. If you are really worried about it, then by all means replace the hoses. Be sure the radiator fittings are nice and clean before fitting the new hoses on them.

 

I have to get mine done before Winter. Thanks for the inspiration LOL!

 

I replaced both upper and lower hoses with OE Toyota. Those spring clamps are good but don't last forever. I have the same leakage as the pics above (lower only). Going to replace the clamps next - should've replaced them when I did the coolant flush, oh well. OP, might want to look into one of these - they make the whole process much easier. If your first coolant change, reference below video.

Lisle 24680 Spill-Free Funnel
by Lisle
Link:

$34 Lisle 24680 Spill-Free Funnel, Standard Adapters, 11 x 7 x 7"es

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A6AS6LY


https://youtu.be/oQsxmi-CNng

 

Agreed, OE spring clamps last a while but not forever. Aftermarket spring clamps are junk & worm screw clamps work better but I'm not a fan of them. I try to avoid them whenever possible on my own vehicles.

My upper radiator hose was weeping for a while cause the hose was worn & stretched. Lower was stretched too but didn't weep. Earlier this year I replaced the radiator due to a cracked cap but didn't replace the hoses yet. I replaced both upper & lower when I did the timing belt, water pump, etc.

The weepage completely went away after replacing the hoses, I also used OEM hoses & they were a very tight fit which I like. When we worked on customer cars that didn't mind aftermarket hoses, some aftermarket hoses didn't have a nice snug fit like OEM. In those cases we would automatically use worm screw clamps to prevent risk of weeping.

I've never had to replace any OE spring clamps yet from fatigue but then again I've never owned a vehicle this long before. I replaced the hoses at 215K mi. It'll be a long time before I'll need to replace again but I'll probably replace the spring clamps next time.

 

I agree with you because, what is the life of the vehicle? 100,000, 200,000, 300,000? I have a new thermostat waiting for an install someday as well as new upper and lower radiator hoses. I just got under my hood and looked at all the hoses. They are all in perfect shape at almost 180,000 miles.

 

Most would argue 300k if not more on these trucks. Your parts guy is full of BS though. The sole reason why Tacos get to such high mileage is because the people who make up the cult following they have, love to maintain them. Thankfully they are easy to do so to. Coolant is by far the most important thing to change in the cooling system. It will turn corrosive after 100kish miles (some would say more, Im not going down that rabbit hole though) If your gonna change out your coolant, may as well spend another $80-$100 and do the hoses, T-stat, radiator cap, coolant temp guage sender, etc. Remember, parts guys are nothing but salesman. And yours is a rather bad one if he is good at talking people OUT of buying stuff.

By the way, in the coming months I plan on doing this job, and my truck only has 65k on it. I believe the key to a vehicles long life is to keep up on "cheap" maintenance to prevent costly maintenance down the road.

 

I agree with everything you've said except for the guy at my Taco dealership. He wasn't the parts guy, he was the shop manager and so far, what he told me has been true for over the last three years my Taco has needed nothing except normal maintenance which he never argued about at all. As a matter of fact the only major thing I've done to my taco since I bought it with 119,000 miles on it was replacing all the suspension which we all know sucks to begin with. I suspect the shop manager is just more honest than many since he doesn't try to sell parts you don't need.