On a 2001 Stratus 2.4, there are two steel heater lines running on the passenger side from the area of the coolant tank area to the firewall.

Mine are really rusty. Would it be preferable to remove the steel lines and replace them with a good grade of heater hose, or use OEM steel lines again?

The octopus resembling steel line (actually two welded into the same assembly) is $167 and requires dropping the engine to install. Is there an easier way?

 

Anyone familiar with this?

 

Can't put this off much longer. Will standard heater hose work, or are the steel tubings essential?

 

Last call... someone's gotta been this road before!

 

i'm not really sure what steel lines are on your car (had a 6 cylinder),but since no one answered figure i'd try,you might be able to use heater hose (i would say steel reinforced) if you secure it and insulate it from rubbing

 

2001 Dodge Stratus, 2.4L engine, 30k miles, rust belt car.

On this car, there's a two steel pipe assembly which attached to the fender wall with three screws, about 3 feet long with awkward bends and angles. The pipe connects via short heater hoses at the firewall, and in the engine to the area via hoses to the coolant expansion tank area. I'm told to install the pipe assembly that the engine needs to be dropped. It runs through a mighty packed area.

I'm hoping to bypass the assembly and use a high grade of conventional heater hose run in the same area. We don't know why it was designed as it was, and don't know if it's advisable to bypass.

The dealer of course says not to bypass it, but can't tell me why not other than that's the way it's engineered. They charge $167 for the part, and it's several hours to install at $120 hour. Not listed in their flat rate schedule. The corner gas station wouldn't take it on.

In a real quandry here, again, surely someone must have faced this.

 

Put this off as long as I can... has anyone been down this road?

It looks doable, but defies the original engineering and I don't know why it was done that way or if I should reengineer it.

A failure could kill the engine, and I don't want to screw it up.

 

If the origional was steel lines, it was either because the engineers decided that it should not be moveable, OR that something that could move (engine?) could be brushing against it, eventually breaking the lines. I would go with the OEM style steel, but at the end of the day, it's YOUR car, and not ours, and if you decide you have a better way of engineering the heater hoses, than go for it.

 

Well, yea, of course.

Others must have faced the same predicament of facing almost $1k bill to change a simple heater hose, and thought of doing it in a way that didn't involve a $150 steel tube, having to drop the engine etc.

A conventional hose sounds really simple. I see no reason why not, but then I'm not an engineer.

Hoping someone who's been on the same road can offer some experience. Maybe even someone who's changed over to conventional hose.

 

So... You answer your own question. You don't want to spend the money to do it "the right way". Nobody here has done it the way you propose (or they would have spoken up I'm sure), so you have two choices. Do it the "right" way or engineer your own solution. Just be prepared to spend the $$ to do it correctly IF your cheaper way doesn't work out for ya. Of course, let us know if it does, since it may well save someone else some headaches. And definitely let us know if it doesn't, and what the reason was. Always easier to justify an expensive repair if we know why the cheaper route won't work

Thanks for being the test subject on this one for us.