mechanic1

...hoses on....no leaks...several fan cycles. No straightening or collapsing so far. Who would have thounk it!LOL:cool10:

....for 90 plus degree bends the wire inside will allow the hose to flatten more than desired. To correct this I cut and made sheet metal bands to wrap round the hose with about 1/4" gap and twisted tie-wire around them tight and used pliers to gently squeeze the hose back to round by taking up slack with the tie-wire....usually took 3 of these bands per bend....sometimes to tie-wire twists per band depending on the tightness of the bend. Can't have ANY sharp burrs or edges on the bands or the pressure and temp on the rubber will make it cut into it. Forgot something important....the straighter the wires (about 1/16 dia. what I used) the better. And because you have to pull them out one at a time,....I de-burred and rounded one end of them. At first I coated the wires with cooking oil with keeping them from sticking to the inside of the hose when heating and also make them come out easier and it did all that very well. But was concerned that the oil might degrade the hose at those temps. So decided to use baby powder instead....it works, not quite as easy to get out but manageable. The copper wires is the only thing I could come up with that was readily available, would stand the heat and that I could get out after I got the bends formed in them and hose cooled and set. Also note that seems like ....I'll guess....the hose needs to be over bent about 20 derees-ish past what you want for an end result. As far as what temp....Can't say exactly....no thermometer that goes that high....I just used full strength...off the shelf antifreeze from walmart and heated with a hot plate till it boiled and turned it down to keep it right there.....dunked the hoses for 10 full minutes....15 for the really tight bends....then pliers and grabbed the ends of the wire and took them out and cooled them with garden hose water......careful!....lots of steam.....and the water will flow thru the hose around the wires....works very well actually....only bad part is straightening the wires for the next setup...lol

Ok....newly formed hoses on...bike filled with water...no antifreeze just yet....ran it thru several fan cycles and no leaks or hose straightening back out or weird stuff going on....all I had time for except a short ride after it got up to temp. As far as hose material....wound up getting plain 3/4 and 1/2" heater hose from autozone made by company named CADNA.....called ARMORMARK. I did buy the little "S" hose at the bottom of the radiator from a local Yamaha deal cause it was available to order...like 14.00...however it is 1/2" I.D. also And had I known the forming thing was going to work so well, I would have just made it too. I Also Bought a cut to fit hose for hose 3 that was suggested here on this sight...don't remember it's number but got it also from autozone....(close to me out here in the boonies lol). I kind of cheated on the small 1/4 hose by using a 1/4 steel brake line about 20" long and cut one end off with tubing cutter and remover the nuts and bent it like the formed rubber hose and when I got it sized and to account for the short connector hose on the ends, I put a slight flare on the ends to keep the hose from slipping off.....don't take much, to big and the hose wont go on very well. Have to make sure no burrs or shape edges so it don't cut the inside of the hose. Think I may have mentioned that I used bare copper strand of wire to fill the inside of the hoses to bend and hold them in the form I wanted.....

Oh,....forgot to mention....my cell# is on the member list under ....Mechanic1...Alabama.

lol...Kentuckyrider is very close to right...lol. And to Prairehammer.....This is all reinventing a new wheel for me too and I intent to post my full experience at it with materials used and what works, what works well and what does not. Right now it is 10:00 pm central time here for me but if you would like to give me a call in the morning be glad to tell you what I know so far about it. Up to this point I have my hoses formed and plan to install then in the morning and do some run testing...ie....operating temp. and pressure. So, will see....

Thanks, I will give them a try.

...thing appears to be working. I have all my hose formed except the little 1/4" one and they look pretty dang good if I do say so myself. I would have never believed it. Now if they just don't go "haywire" when I get them on and get them up to temp. or burst a spray hot coolant on me....I'm going to run it some before I put all the trim back on and side panels.

Anyone remember how antifreeze use to be flammable...? Guess what? ...it still is...LOL I nearly burnt down my whole "Hose Forming" operation earlier today.lol. If anyone else decides to try this....DO NOT, I repeat....DO NOT add water to very hot antifreeze....It will foam and boil over with explosive intensity and make your hot plate, can of antifreeze and the hose your trying to form all catch on fire....LOL I should have realized it would do that but wasn't thinking so everyone becareful. I did have enough for-thought to do it all away from the house so I didn't take a chance of burning my shack down...lol really easy to get burnt by steam to and don't breath any of the vapors.

Anyone Know where I can get 1/4" I.D. coolant hose on a roll?

I plan to be working on it again and soon as I have more results and answers I will pass them along....besides, someone on here might have a better "mouse trap".lol:fingers-crossed-emo

...AS far as how hot I got mine....I guessed it...got no temp gauge that goes that high...what I can tell you is...using a hot plate and a metal can with full strength antifreeze I got it to a low rolling boil and kept the hose in it for 8 to 10 minutes. Have yet to see if they keep their shape when at operating temp yet but I believe they will....boiling water isn't quite enough heat to make them take a new form really so...we will see

Well, actually it wasn't my idea originally. In my hunt for cut to fit hose for my first Gen...and while looking for metal tubing to use in place of the bypass hose with only short and straight connector hoses....I came across this guy at Lowe's here close to me. And he is a fellow biker and builds custom bike some...mostly Harley's I think...he told me you could form them with a good hair drier....I blew it off as BS at first, but then internet searched it....and found a post where a guy said his buddy worked at a place that did just that...formed straight stock hose from a roll that was already "cured"...by passing hot fuild thru them for a time then cooling with cold water

I wound up using antifreeze so I could boil it to get the temp hot enough to make it "set" to the form,...I figure is about 250-300 degrees for about 10 minutes then cool with cold water as quick as I can. Question is, how hot is to hot that degrades the hose material? lol

So far I have tried couple of different type of hose material...the first was actually a type of fuel line made by Gates...since it had a temp of up to 257F and pressure of 35 psi...and it has a type of plastic in it but not totally. The other is just plain rubber heater hose made by Gates also and it seems to have worked pretty well also. Just trying not to re-invent the wheel is someone has had past experience at it

had a guy to tell me about this and I tried it....surprisingly enough...it seems to work pretty well!

Forming coolant hoses and "cooking" them to take that shape?

I'm having success! Work in progress and showing very good promise!

Well, spent most of the day working on new hoses for the bike.....so, as I have search the internet some with no suitable success we went to our local Yamaha dealer to check one last time for oem hoses...the guys there were very polite and willing to help but no real hits on oem hoses except hose 5 that they said they could order for me for about 14 buck so I bit on that one,.....so off we go to bother a local Oreilly's auto parts dealer. The young guy there was most helpful and patient. He took my hoses one by one and searched their inventory for the fit and form I needed...and with success for most applications although I have yet to fit check them so is on going. Oddly enough during part of my search at Lowes for metal tubing options,...met a gut working there that was into Harley bikes and building them that had some rather unique idea's...namely forming straight rubber hose into the crooks and turns I needed....so in the process of trying that out to see how that works out. I will say that I have already had some suprising success with that already! I will post results of what works out well and what does not including part numbers as best I can as I progress. High hopes of real life working solutions. These are to good of bikes to let die just cause of lack of parts.

Am I wrong or looks like to me that it is one of the 6 coolant hoses listed on the parts diagram? If I can manage to get all 6 coolant hoses replaced new and the cross-pipe o-ring...I should be good right?

This is the one I am talking about.....what does it do?

Ok....three hours later now I have all the hoses off or at least the 6 major ones anyway there is however one smaller hose that runs from the "T block" I will call it down to what appears to be a crankcase breather.....does this hose circulate coolant also and if so where does the coolant go from there? any help muchly appreciated

Those are for the radiator? I kind want to change all the coolant hose if possible too. That's great...complete with numbers even.

James, we will be praying for your brother-in-law and his family and especially your sister. Almost a year an a half ago our oldest son was in a car wreck...very bad car wreck and at 26 years old at first they thought he was dead at the scene and then my daughter-in -law was told as soon as she got to the hospital that he was alive but would die for sure and then later when he didn't die...told us that he would most likely never come out of the coma.....just telling you all this to get to this point...sometimes you just have to have faith and pray that what we hope for is god's will and judgement for what is best. Today, after being in a coma for a month our son did come back to us and much like your brother-in-law could only answer yes and no questions by blinking. And now he continues to slowly get better and can walk with help. His memory and personality with the exception of being out a month is the same as before. As mentally sharp as ever....he has never gave up. If your brother-in-law hangs tough and god almighty has plans yet for him to do....Well, "Thy will be done" Roy

Well, I been putting off changing all the hoses on My '86 ,....kind of dreading searching for hoses....nightmares of standing in an endless warehouse full of hoses of every kind trying to find ones that would work or with a little trimming. So, tomorrow is the day...gonna start taking it apart and have a look see....first experience with hoses on it. No leaks, just don't know how old they are. I did get the one rad. hose substitute from auto zone,...thanks for that tip guys....anyone found any others that would work? Also had another thought too...would tubing with the correct bends in them and size with short pieces of hose to make the connection work?...just a thought.

Kind of along the same lines....couple of guys not to far from me in the Gold Ridge community wenched an old vw beelte body up into a big oak tree and with the windshield out of it...they used it for a deer stand to hunt out of...even put a battery in it so they could turn the radio on real low...lol....sounded like a good way to run the deer off to me but....comfortable boxstand I bet no less...lol