Sweating heater hoses.. anyone seen this?

I replaced the heater hoses on my '87 XJ about a month ago. I bought the hose off a roll at O'Reilly. They have never leaked. However today, I noticed both of them were soaking wet as if they had sweated. Has anyone seen this before?

Doubt it has anything to do with it.. but there is a small amount of trans fluid in my coolant from when my radiator had an internal leak.

That IS wierd. Sounds like defective hose. Wipe them off and watch if it happens again while you are running.

winterbeater said:

That IS wierd. Sounds like defective hose. Wipe them off and watch if it happens again while you are running.

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Concur. Hose isn't supposed to be porous or sweat. If it does either, there's something wrong.

Are you sure they are heater hoses and not the A/C hoses into the expansion block?

hah yes I know which ones are the heater hoses..

I noticed they doing it again today.. very strange. I'm going to have to dry them and just watch it get up to temperature and see where it comes from..

Early morning as temps start up the coolant (motor) is colder and gets condensation when the humidity is high. Like a iced drink glass.

Check if its coolant or just moisture on the hoses.

I've seen it. Got some junk heater hose at Advanced a while back. It had a few pinholes that would build up green crud.

JJacobs said:

I've seen it. Got some junk heater hose at Advanced a while back. It had a few pinholes that would build up green crud.

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^^ true-- there was a recall from Thermoid on their bulk hose about two years ago due to a manufacturing problem. The machine that pulls the hose through to roll it was set incorrectly and all the hose had pinholes at 18" intervals.

I would have to say that "sweating" hoses is not something I'd ignore, since air can be pulled back into the system as it cools and that'll give you some cooling gremlins this spring/summer if not remedied.

If you can, put a coolant system pressure test pump on your system and pump it up to 16 or 18 pounds. Then you can really see it without screwing around.

My dad said the parts store heater hoses on his 240z does the same thing.. Almost like the hose is porous.

I would recommend buying your parts from a higher-quality parts store, like NAPA or an independent.

Is O'Reilly the "wal-mart" of parts stores? The hose I bought is "gates" brand.. which usually makes the "higher end" belts..

O'Reilly, Autozone, Murrays, Pep Boys, etc. ARE the same as Walmart! Your old school NAPA or IAPD? auto parts stores are a step up and the desk jockeys are much more knowledgeable. You would THINK that Gates would be good, but if it leaks or is "porous", it isn't worth a damn. With all the acquisitions and brand purchasing, I'm afraid that Chinese distributors may be supplying with brand names now.

I'm not sure why Joe Peters would say that. I have no vested interest in O'Reilly other than having shopped there for ~24 years (actually that includes time at Hi-Lo in Houston that O'Reilly bought at some point) in southeast Texas. O'Reilly stocks Wix, Wagner, Moog, Spicer, ACDelco, Gates etc. etc. I recently spotted some Sachs brand items and thought now they've added some junk. Wrong -- I looked them up and Sachs is a division of ZF of Germany that has been around more than 90 years with a significant and growing engineering and manufacturing presence in America.

I will say that O'Reilly until recently had one of the most godawful web sites that I have ever seen for any company of any type or size. They have vastly improved it although it still has a few bugs. O'Reilly may not be the best parts house in America but they don't deserve the suggestion that they sell junk.

Stephenspann27, have you actually determined exactly what the problem is with your hoses? Again, I have no reason to defend Gates, O'Reilly or anyone else, but to suggest that Gates has degenerated into nothing more than Chinese crap based on an as yet diagnosed problem is ludicrous. If your hoses are defective, you should call up Gates and discuss the problem.

NAPA's are locally owned (at least ours is) and their desk jockeys may or may not be more knowledgeable than the local O'Reilly or other locally owned shops that sell most of the same brands as the chain stores.

Joe and winterbeater are entitled to their opinion but they obviously have little knowledge of O'Reilly. Everyone should shop where they feel comfortable. I buy oil at Walmart, occasional items at NAPA, Wix filters at O'Reilly, and a bunch of stuff online at sites such as Rockauto where parts are cheaper but not necessarily of any better quality than at the local stores.

Let us know about the hoses.

Is it Coolant or Condensation on the hoses?????

I shop at O'Reilly because my dad has an "installer" account there and I run all my purchases through it to save a little dough. In the both towns in which I've lived, there has always been a huge difference between VatoZone and O'Rielly. Vatozone frequently hires high school girls and other equally inept parts desk workers.
However, for the most part, I've been fairly satisfied with the knowledge of O'Reilly parts workers.
Sadly, in my home town one of the parts counter people used to own his own parts store, but it went out of business after O'Reilly came in.... now he works for the company that put him out of business.

Before Vatozone and O'reilly came to my home town back in east Texas, everyone shopped at NAPA, and Car-Quest. NAPA went out of business soon after O'Reilly and Vatozone came in...

I will agree that NAPA guys know their stuff, and sell good parts, I just can't bring myself to pay the premium. Also..their website sucks.. it doesnt tell you what parts are in stock.. or which stores have it..

When I shop at O'Reilly, I've already looked the parts up online, and written the part number down, so I walk in and give them a list of part numbers, they type it in, and get me my crap.. That way I can avoid all the "what's this going on?" "is it a compact cherokee?" "4 cylinder?" Sadly, most of the parts counter ppl know the year of my cherokee and my account #....

As for the hoses.. I haven't figured out exactly where its coming from.. I don't think its condensation because I can see a green hue to the liquid.

I sincerely apologize to everyone who has posted in this thread.. and to the gates corporation.. The leak finally got bad enough for me to tell what is going on. The hose is split where it slides over the fitting of the thermastat housing, its slowly coming out there, then the fan is blowing the coolant up that hose, and then onto the neighboring hose to the point where it looks like a coating.

As to why the hose split.. I used 5/8's hose.. and I had to use grease and a lot of force to get it to slide over that T stat housing fitting. What size hose should I be using? The T stat housing I'm using came from the j-yard off a '89 and that particular fitting has a larger OD than the corroded one I took off my '87 head..

Glad you found the immediate problem. Before your last post I was going to try to work up an Aggie joke starting along the lines of "How many Aggies does it take to change a heater hose on an xj, etc." but got busy and forgot. Actually, I'm guessing that you are not an Aggie to start with -- perhaps SFA whose boys recently kinda got frozen up north? In any event good to see you on the right track.

If the hose size is still an outstanding question, I'm guessing that most using an aftermarket hose start with a 3/4" diam and worry about clamping it down on the other end. Seems like I saw a post on this just the other day but maybe not. Perhaps some one who knows will chime in.