No, I took the original hose with me to match diameter and curvature and so
on. That hose is spongy and rotten feeling, and if you look at it end-on you
can see where an inner layer is separating from the outer layer. It's almost
like it underwent some chemical change, but none of the other hoses had any
issues. It may well have been defective manufacture for all I know, but I
thought it was interesting that Dennis had warned me that something like
that might happen and it did. I just thought it was worth passing along to
Greg.
You can't ever let yourself think 'problem solved' with these vans; you have
to go over everything regularly, sometimes especially if you just replaced
it. : /

Cya,
Robert

-----Original Message-----
From: pdooley [mailto:psdooley@verizon.net]
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 2:40 PM
To: 'Robert Fisher'; vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: RE: Coolant hose replacement

Robert, was that hose in the pics too large in diameter for the application?
I have replaced a couple "molded"$$ hoses on various VAG products with
shorter sections and metal tees, never experienced this problem.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Robert Fisher
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 4:59 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Coolant hose replacement

I did something very similar on my '87 back when, and I recall when I
mentioned it on the list Dennis warned me that cutting the hose like that
might lead to deformation later. When I put it on it looked much like your
hose there, much to my surprise less than 5000 miles later it looked like
this:

http://picasaweb.google.com/garciasghostvw/BadHose#