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tap4154 · 10-29-2020, 04:15 PM

Went out to Joshua Tree yesterday in my 10 year-old E450 28-foot Tioga. Ran great, everything worked perfectly, but in the late afternoon I was walking up to my camp and noticed a little bit of coolant under the engine.

Looked under and there was just a little bit dripping down on some rods and it was coming from the end of the bottom radiator hose. The original spring clamp was very rusty, even though the hoses are in pretty decent shape, I never really noticed it. The other ones are kinda rusty, but not nearly as bad as the bottom one.

The campground I'm in (Cottonwood) there is no cell service and no hookups, so I start rummaging through my storage drawers HOPING I have a hose clamp. I had a couple designed for the sewer hose, and as it turned out they could go down to a small enough size to put on the radiator hose.

So as the Sun was setting I was going to back off the steel spring clamp and slide it back on the hose enough enough to put on the screw down clamp (I didn't want to remove the hose because I'd lose coolant) and just using needle nose pliers on the spring clamp, it broke on two.

I was lucky! That could have easily cracked on it's own and the hose could have blown out at any point in my drive. So this morning I ran the engine until it warmed up to temp and my fix was holding tight, and drove 160 miles home (had planned to do some more exploring at the north end of the park until Saturday). Going to have the upper and lower hoses replaced ASAP, or do it myself.

JFYI

tap4154 · 10-29-2020, 09:08 PM

Upon returning home and checking things out a little bit more carefully, and talking to a mechanic, I think the fix is fine and the other connections are okay, and the hoses are fine. I just didn't want to be the idiot that got stuck in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park.

I'm planning on going back in about 2 weeks when there's a new moon and darker skies, and I'm going to enter from the north this time.

But I did meet a little buddy while I was there yesterday, his mama was out this morning, much larger.

THenne1713 · 10-29-2020, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tap4154

Went out to Joshua Tree yesterday in my 10 year-old E450 28-foot Tioga. Ran great, everything worked perfectly, but in the late afternoon I was walking up to my camp and noticed a little bit of coolant under the engine.

Looked under and there was just a little bit dripping down on some rods and it was coming from the end of the bottom radiator hose. The original spring clamp was very rusty, even though the hoses are in pretty decent shape, I never really noticed it. ... on the radiator hose.
(text deleted fir brevity)

I was lucky! That could have easily cracked on it's own and the hose could have blown out at any point in my drive. So this morning I ran the engine until it warmed up to temp and my fix was holding tight, and drove 160 miles home (had planned to do some more exploring at the north end of the park until Saturday). Going to have the upper and lower hoses replaced ASAP, or do it myself.

JFYI

Last year, running weekly in driveway, small drip starts on TRANS FLUID, screw hose clamp to trans-cooler, ended up replacing hoses and installing double clamps at each joint... cudda been bad or even FIRE RISK on interstate in heavy traffic? (1999 with all original hoses, except a few fuel vapor sections above transmission and the transmission cooler hoses)

tap4154 · 10-30-2020, 08:17 AM

Yeah you definitely don't want your transmission fluid dripping on very hot things. One bad thing about the screw down clamps is they can cut into the hose if you tighten them too much. But one thing, that just serendipitously happened because I used a very large screw clamp, is that it's almost solid stainless steel all the way around the radiator hose, with only a few of the thread slots left. In fact the leftover that I cut off was about 4" long of the slotted steel . So I'm just going to leave it alone because it didn't leak at all on the trip home. Also is a good quality clamp. Some of the screw down clamps are really cheap metal.

On another topic, I had a loose Velvac driver side mirror. Not the glass, but the whole head was shaky and moving around. When I closed the door I'd have to readjust the glass with the remote. I finally discovered that behind a rubber plug on the end of the arm is a 3/16 hex bolt, and when you tighten that it snugs down the mirror head!

THenne1713 · 10-30-2020, 11:28 PM

MY 1999 CHASSIS w/ the Model #2015 VELVAC has NO tension screws, and I had similar scary swivel issue come up on a trip; (truly scary driving blind for lane change; later added shim to swivel post clamp w/ coke/ beer can= all good 2+ years later

tap4154 · 10-31-2020, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by THenne1713

MY 1999 CHASSIS w/ the Model #2015 VELVAC has NO tension screws, and I had similar scary swivel issue come up on a trip; (truly scary driving blind for lane change; later added shim to swivel post clamp w/ coke/ beer can= all good 2+ years later

My adjustment screw, that 3/16 hex, was behind a hard rubber plug at the very end of the arm.

THenne1713 · 11-01-2020, 10:51 AM

The tension adjust allen screws, from my research/ experience, came w/ later model mirrors, maybe the model 2020, or 2025? THE Model 2015 was used in 1999-2000, not sure what year they changed?

tap4154 · 11-01-2020, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by THenne1713

The tension adjust allen screws, from my research/ experience, came w/ later model mirrors, maybe the model 2020, or 2025? THE Model 2015 was used in 1999-2000, not sure what year they changed?

Mine is a 2010 Fleetwood Tioga Ranger 28y.. it was funny because the plug actually had a slot in it and I thought it was a plastic screw. I tried turning it and it started falling apart. So I dug it out with an ice pic and voila, there's the hex screw. Always seems to be the driver side mirror that gets loose because that door gets the most use.

Here's what the plug on the passenger side looks like.

tap4154 · 11-06-2020, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tap4154

Went out to Joshua Tree yesterday in my 10 year-old E450 28-foot Tioga. Ran great, everything worked perfectly, but in the late afternoon I was walking up to my camp and noticed a little bit of coolant under the engine.

Looked under and there was just a little bit dripping down on some rods and it was coming from the end of the bottom radiator hose. The original spring clamp was very rusty, even though the hoses are in pretty decent shape, I never really noticed it. The other ones are kinda rusty, but not nearly as bad as the bottom one.

The campground I'm in (Cottonwood) there is no cell service and no hookups, so I start rummaging through my storage drawers HOPING I have a hose clamp. I had a couple designed for the sewer hose, and as it turned out they could go down to a small enough size to put on the radiator hose.

So as the Sun was setting I was going to back off the steel spring clamp and slide it back on the hose enough enough to put on the screw down clamp (I didn't want to remove the hose because I'd lose coolant) and just using needle nose pliers on the spring clamp, it broke on two.

I was lucky! That could have easily cracked on it's own and the hose could have blown out at any point in my drive. So this morning I ran the engine until it warmed up to temp and my fix was holding tight, and drove 160 miles home (had planned to do some more exploring at the north end of the park until Saturday). Going to have the upper and lower hoses replaced ASAP, or do it myself.

JFYI

Just to update: because the upper hose spring clamps were also a bit rusty, I went ahead and replaced or reinforced those with some good spin down clamps, but they were not ready to fail. Even though they had quite a bit of rust on them they still were holding tension, but I put on spin down clamps anyway.. Just didn't want to have a repeat of that lower clamp failing while I was out camping again.

In fact on the engine block end of the upper hose I just moved the spring clamp forward a bit, so I had plenty of room to put a spring clamp on behind it. So now it's double clamped. That way I didn't have to drain the coolant or break the existing seal between the hose and the engine block nipple. The upper radiator spring clamp was easy to remove by quickly removing the hose and clamp, and pushing the hose back on. Just lost a small amount of coolant.

By the way, large vise grips work great on those OEM spring clamps. But be careful when you remove them from the vice grips, they can go flying!

Ran the engine up to temperature for about 30 minutes, and no leaks.

This makes me feel better about the other end of the bottom hose, that still has the original spring clamp on it. It's not that rusty and now I'm not worried about it. It's more difficult to access, and I'd have to drain all of the coolant in order to replace it. The bottom clamp that failed was much more exposed to the elements over the years.

I also bought an assortment of different sizes of spin down clamps in case any other original clamps fail while I'm out camping.