I used to think the spring hose clamps were junk, and always replaced them with worm-drive hose clamps, but now I have a new appreciation for the spring type. With the worm-drive hose clamps, I try to tighten them just enough to prevent leaks, but not tight enough to damage the hose…and the result is that they loosen over time from thermal cycling, and leaks occur. Going forward, I will try to use/reuse spring hose clamps whenever possible. I need to buy a good spring hose clamp assortment and tool set.
If you find a good set, accommodating vendor, let us know.
Just to follow up, when I replaced my Corolla’s water pump a year or so ago, I monkeyed around with that pipe, but eventually decided it wasn’t actually necessary to remove it or do anything special with it at all, just leave it in place & connect it up to the replacement water pump. Still wondering why factory service instructions said to remove it.
I bought one from az for under $30. Never used it though.
I helped a neighbor once with one of these trucks in a similar condition. It had been neglected but probably not as much as this truck. I seem to recall her truck being a 1995. The earlier generations of the 3.9L used a crappy timing set without a tensioner. I think this was rectified in 1997 and people could install a newer style timing set in an older engine to fix this. Anyway, the chain would stretch and bang into the timing cover. Her engine never beat a hole in the timing cover but I read about this happening to some folks with this truck. This problem was worse with neglect since there was more wear on the timing chain from bad oil.
The coolant looked like black coffee. I am not sure what that meant but I flushed it quite while and the water coming out the other side never really looked clean. I guess it was rust/oxidation in the block. Anyway, I eventually just refilled with new coolant which promptly looked just as bad as the old coolant. I think rust was coming out of the block from all the neglect.
Anyway, the steering and suspension on her truck were also horrible. She didn’t use the truck so I helped her with the basic stuff like flushing the radiator, changing the oil, etc. I changed the belts, radiator, and heater hoses at the same time as they were about shot and ripped apart when I took them off. She didn’t want to spend what it would take to make this thing completely right but bought supplies to at least prevent it from getting much worse. I did convince her to change the water pump while I was doing the cooling system work but she wouldn’t do anything about the timing set (I was right there). She thought it would be a good idea to change that once I had it all put back together and I told her no thanks and that I was literally 10 minutes away from changing that before and she had told me no in the past. Eventually she realized she wasn’t going to use this truck much and sold or gave it to some family member a ways off and I never saw it again. Never seeing this thing again was the best thing that could happen!
They started using a nylon coated cam gears on V6 & V8’s (performance engines may not have) sometime in the 60"s(?? I don’t remember the exact time), (USA anyway) that would wear down and or jump timing or break, mainly for noise reduction (and probably cost)(chains also stretched)… I always would use a double roller 3 piece timing chain set with steal gears for everyone I ever replaced if available, makes a little more noise but doesn’t stretch as bad and no nylon to break off in fall down into the oil pan… The tensioner came into play cause the chain stretched and would jump timing (and better timing control due to chain stretch)… So they were all junk back then when using the nylon coated gears… I replaced plenty on more than just the 3.9L Mopar’s…