• Welcome to The Truck Stop! We see you haven't REGISTERED yet.

    Your truck knowledge is missing!
    • Registration is FREE , all we need is your birthday and email. (We don't share ANY data with ANYONE)
    • We have tons of knowledge here for your diesel truck!
    • Post your own topics and reply to existing threads to help others out!
    • NO ADS! The site is fully functional and ad free!
    CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

    Problems registering? Click here to contact us!

    Already registered, but need a PASSWORD RESET? CLICK HERE TO RESET YOUR PASSWORD!

99 Suburban Rear Heater hose tee leaking

My heater T blew yesterday 350 miles from home, on a 4500 mile trip from California. 2001 Suburban 2500-6.0 litre. Fortunately I had just taken the wrong exit on the interstate due to my GPS getting confused, and I ended up on a quiet side street in a residential neighborhood with plenty of parking for my truck and trailer. I was able to effect a semi-permanent repair with my $1 pocket knife and a pair of vice grips I just bought a flea market for $2. And AutoZone was a few blocks away and I got there at exactly 10 closing time. I got some pink Dexcool and within an hour I was back on the road. I video'd the whole episode, and now I've got to get rid of all these crappy plastic-nylon fittings that are degrading. The truck will be parked all winter as I plan to pull the transmission and rebuild it for preventive measures, the truck has 260 K, and the rub through transfer case issue, and a few other things that I'd like to do before I use it for summertime towing.
 

Attachments

  • 1113182128.jpg
    1113182128.jpg
    113.1 KB · Views: 8
  • 1113182132a.jpg
    1113182132a.jpg
    101.1 KB · Views: 7
  • 1113182207.jpg
    1113182207.jpg
    122 KB · Views: 7
  • 1113182212b.jpg
    1113182212b.jpg
    63.6 KB · Views: 6
  • 1101181403a.jpg
    1101181403a.jpg
    97 KB · Views: 6
  • 1031181511a.jpg
    1031181511a.jpg
    111 KB · Views: 7
When mine went on my 01 suburban 6.0, we broke down near a home depot. I went in starting to look for some kind of hose clamps and found a brass 'T' in their plumbing for some kind of landscaping system. I put it in with a little piece of hose and screw style clamps. It worked wonderfully and the fitting was only a couple dollars. The biggest pain as you figured out is working under the cowl area. I enjoy your videos btw you should post links to them here for folks to find and enjoy.
 
Thank you will for the compliments on my video, I was trying to get out of the hotel that I was staying in. I've been on the road for over three weeks and I'm way behind schedule in my projects before winter, and it's going to snow on Friday. I've got some roofing to do, that I've been putting off for a year. If you wouldn't mind posting the link to my videos, that would be great. And I'll figure out what to do with this heater to do a sanitary job, I like things to look stock, maybe I'll even put back the original plastic nylon fittings, they did last 15 years 260k
 
PEX Tee fitting is what I used. Basically an exact fit into the heater hoses. The PEX sizing runs differently than for hose. I did this many years ago, so bear with the rusty brain cells. I believe it was a 1-1-3/4 Tee, where the 'top' of the Tee is 1 and 3/4 and the 'leg' is 1. Or it is a 3/4-3/4-1/2. Anyway, to replicate the built in restriction in the OEM Tee, I took a copper 1/2 pipe cap, drilled a hole through it the same size as the restriction and used the ball end of a ball pein hammer as a flare tool and tapped the the face of the hammer with another to flare the cap's edge out enough to make an interference fit inside the leg the OEM restriction is in. To keep it in place I sweat soldered it. New connecting hoses with hi-temp silicone/fiberglass insulating sleeves (after market, to protect from turbo/exhaust manifold heat) and FAR better than OEM could ever be!
 
I used pex fittings on a Christmas or Christmas eve many years ago. We got 25 miles from home and decided to have an issue. Only 5 miles from where we were going.


I think I used vise grips until I got back home. I had some pex fittings that I made work. They're still there. I think I needed 2 - 5/8 and one 3/4" pex barbs.
 
Back
Top