today, while i was cruising down the highway, my car suddenly started spewing out thick white smoke, i pulled over to investigate, and found that one of my heater core hoses had burst so that it was spewing coolant all over the place under the hood. it had burst a little before it went into the engine block, so i cut off the bit of the hose that burst and clamped it back onto the block, works fine for now, but, my question is:

someone broke the the little clamp ears that you have to depress to remove this line from the heater core, so how could i go about removing it from the core?

and should i be worried that the coolant may have gotten into something while it was spraying around under the hood? or should i just not worry about it?

 

Airplanes get sprayed with glycol (antifreeze) day in and day out during the winter, it goes thru turbine engines, I think you'll be OK . As long as it didn't overheat (mine did when it blew a radiator hose) I'd say you escaped harm.

 

Yep, as long as it didn't overheat you should be fine. I would check/change ALL the hoses if they are the originals

 

what about getting that hose off the heater core to change it?

 

You might need to use a screwdriver to get it depressed to be able to remove the hose.

 

I had the same issue when I had to changed the heater core on my '94. I had to fight with it for an hour or so but a couple of small screwdrivers (one on each side since both of the tabs were broken) like Tech suggested and I finally got it to pop free. Fortunately I bought the full kit with new connectors from eEuro but if you go that route you need to be sure to remove the old spacer and O ring from the pipe or it will not lock in place.

...Lee

 

another way to get rid of the broken clamp is to grind it down using a hand dremel/grinder or something from the diagonally opposite side of where the ears were.