I got my new thermostat and I was thinking might as well replace the radiator hoses as well. So I saw these Gates Powergrip hose clamps that you apply heat to and they shrink to fit around the hose. Supposedly they adjust better to heat and cold since they're a rubber compound.

Anyone use them on their 3rd gen Dakota?

 

never used one before..almost like heavy duty heat-shrink? that's pretty neat. I would try it out and if it leaks just throw a regular clamp on there. You can't go wrong with that!

 

Pretty much...

You crush it and pull the cardboard out and slip it over the hose. Then take a heat gun and heat it up. Makes difficult spots for tools easier since you just need heat. They also said you can't overheat it. They make them in all different sizes (might work on tranny lines, vac hoses, etc). The downside to them is you need a soldering iron to take them off or Gates' special tool which cuts them off. So unlike regular clamps... they're not reusable. This along with their blue striped hoses supposedly stop/slows water loss.

Of course no auto parts stores near me have the pre-cut hoses in stock so I might order these along with the hoses.

 

I ordered the upper and lower radiator hoses from my local O'Reilly/Checker, but of course they couldn't figure out the Powergrip sizes. I went to order them online, but of course no ship to store so I ordered them from Rockauto. Since Gates only gives a range on the Outside Diameter (and the hose sizes are inside diameter) I took my new hoses and measured the circumference then divided by pi get that number.

So if anyone wanted to know:
Upper hose: Gates part number 23043 has an approximate O.D. of 1.892". The Powergrip that will fit this is 32948 or SB48 x2.
Lower hose: Gates part number 23044 has an approximate O.D. of 2.14859". The Powergrip that will fit this is 32954 or SB54 x2.

Edit: The lower Powergrip didn't work for me, it was too small. So you'll want Gates Powergrip 32960 or SB60 to fit the lower x2.

The 4 clamps cost about 11.08 with the 5% discount. My total was 16.70 with shipping.

 

Dang only received one of each... just emailed service@rockauto.com... Hoping they'll take care of it quickly!

 

Rockauto took care of this quickly and easily and sent me the missing clamps... hoping to install my 180 tstat and the new hoses and clamps on Thursday.

 

So much like everything else... this didn't go as planned. I could get the Powergrips on the upper hose, but the lower one was too tight so I ended up buy worm clamps... on the bright side I have my 180º Jet Thermostat in now.

 

Is there a bigger size that would have fit?

 

Yeah... I edited my previous post... Powergrip 32960 or SB60. Should be 2.25" to 2.5". I think that would work better. It was too small because the lower hose seemed to expand in size significantly when put on the radiator outlet and the inlet to the thermostat housing. By my measurements it looked like it would have fit, but I didn't think the hose would expand so much. Did my upper hose pic not show up? I didn't take one of the lower with the SureGrip not fitting. I can take one of the worm clamps! .

 

Here's close ups of the upper hose on the radiator side with the powergrip:

And the engine side: