Blew a heater hose yesterday.

A friend of mine bought an '04 Cobra yesterday. He let me take it out for a spin and afterwards i told him i'd take him for a spin in my car. I pull out of the parking lot and get a bit sideways. We both get big grins on my face and i pull up to the stop sign near a pretty long straight. I tell him "now, watch this" (famous last words, huh?). I stomp it in first and the tires spin, then grab and we launch forward. I rev it up to about 5K and shift to second hard. I'm just topping out second gear when i suddenly feel a change in the engine. I immediately let off the gas and see a smokescreen in the rear view mirror. The first thought that goes through my head is "bye bye head gasket". I knew it couldn't be TOO bad because there was no rod-exiting-block noise. Unfortunately, there's nowhere close to pull off, so i have to go about 200 yards to the nearest parking lot and pull off. By the time i shut her down the temp is about 250* or so. I open the hood and am greeted with plenty of steam.

Long story short, after the smoke clears i discover that one of the heater hoses from the back of the block to the heater core has burst in dramatic fashion. Apparently, the restrictor they put in there saves your heater core, but destroys your hose! The funny thing is, this hose is only a few months old. I put on a brand new one when i changed the heater core this summer. Maybe i should have left the 107K mile hose on there?

So, i picked up a replacement hose from Napa (no restrictor) and put it on in about 10 minutes after work and filled the system with water. Everything seems hunky dory now. Trying to decide if i should put a restrictor in the hose or not. At the very least, i need to refill the system with coolant, instead of the 90% water that's in there now, and change the oil. On the bright side, i guess now i don't have to pay for a coolant flush.

Haven't had a chance to put them on yet. The back tires are a real tight squeeze, so i'm afraid to lower the car until i can put a 1/4" spacer back there. I ordered spacers and full length subs from MM last week. They should be here soon.

Thanks again for the hook up. I can't thank you enough.

Ford289Mustang said:

I think if it was me I would put the restrictor back in the hose. LRS was very insistant on that when I talked to them. Everyone else I talked to said to make sure it was still in there when everything got put back together. When I did my heater core I reused my 112K hoses and haven't had a problem with them or the heater core.
Changing the heater core really sucks.

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Yeah, i definitely don't want to do the heater core again. I just can't believe the hose blew out after only about 3 months! The new hose didn't come with a restrictor, and i forgot to take the old restrictor out before i threw away the hose, so i'll probably end up McGuyvering something. I've got plenty of stuff to do to the car so i'll probably just try to take care of everything next week or so.