Total Heater Hose replacement-3SFE

[Phils Camry]

Having blown a heater hose during rush hour, I thought I would offer this advise for replacing heater hoses on the 3SFE. Winter is here, so heaters will be in use. REPLACE them ALL! Its cheaper than a blown head gasket. Toyota makes some great hoses. 4 of them I replaced were factory original. They lasted 17 years.
There are 6 hoses in all. 4 precurved and 2 straight hoses. They are: 1-firewall(heater core) to heater control valve. 2-water pump to cylinder head(just under the upper radiator hose). 3 & 4-throttle body to engine. 5 & 6-heater core to engine(straight hoses). Change them all at the same time as you need the hoses off to change the throttle body to engine hoses. Do those first. They are most difficult. Doctor J suggests removal of the distributor to make more room( helpful but not necessary). This whole job took about half a day because I had trouble finding the throttle body to engine hoses. The Toyota parts guys even had trouble finding them to get me the hoses. Hoses cost about $70USD. Get the precurved hoses in advance as the dealer doesn't stock them.
ADVISE- Get needle nose pliers with a 90 degree curve at the tip to remove and replace hard reach pinch clamps. Put Vaseline just under the pinch clamps to ease sliding the clamp over the flared pipe fitting ends to remove. Dip new hoses in Anti freeze to ease sliding onto flared pipe fittings and also eases sliding pinch clamps into place. I hope this is helpful. It should shorten the job time. Ask any questions you might have and I will try to answer them. GOOD LUCK!

[GregElliott]

whenever I get a chance I'll take pictures or the heater hoses on my car that I just replaced...I did them all but I mixed Gates hoses and Toyota dealer hoses... for the shorter kinky hoses I used OEM parts but for the two largest hoses I used the Premium Gates hose with the extra layer of red insulation on the outside. lol it's bright.

[white90dx]

If you live in a place where it doesn't get much below freezing, just bypass the throttle body coolant lines. There are there just to keep it from freezing up in cold weather. It will make cleaning the throttle body much easier in the future.

-Charlie

[Phils Camry]

I thought about bypassing the throttle body and just connecting the engine and cylinder head together with the hose, but I wasn't sure if it would affect the emissions controls....you know how California is with that stuff. Im here in Fullerton.

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by Phils Camry

I thought about bypassing the throttle body and just connecting the engine and cylinder head together with the hose, but I wasn't sure if it would affect the emissions controls....you know how California is with that stuff. Im here in Fullerton.

I think technically it is against CARB rules to remove the throttle body coolant, but I can't imagine a smog tech checking for it. It isn't on the smog diagrams under the hood, so how are they supposed to know? At the same time, it won't affect tailpipe emissions - the manifold heats up plenty whether the coolant is there or not.

-Charlie