MrMoparCHP
Old Man with a Hat
The other day I needed to put a new upper heater hose for my 1969 318 Polara.
I went online and checked the three parts stores we have in town (O'Reily, AutoZone and NAPA) along with RockAuto.
The only one they list was the universal flex hose.
This car does not have AC but the AC hose was available so looked at it but it was not even close. So I went into the stockroom and started looking through hoses and spotted one that looked just like what I had on the car so I got it. Looking at the cross reference I saw that it was used on a berage of other Mopars including a 1970 Polara with a 318. My first thought was that it was somehow missed as also being used on the 1969.
So I thought I'd lookup the factory Mopar part number because on most of the websites you can search for original part numbers.
With the 1969 number I went to the Gates website and first looked it up in their cross reference lookup. Luck has it they had the number.
On to the store sites with that number and sure enough the number comes up (although not in stock) so the hose does exist but not associated with this car on any of the sites.
I ordered one and sure enough it works (sort of), first I thought it might be a little short but figured it was because I had the aluminum radiator in the car till I looked and my reference marks to the original hose locations and noticed the original hose was another inch further out, no way this hose would have worked? even though it was said to be the correct one.
I have ran into this before on my Barracuda that with some parts the stores just don't have a reference for it, today they may say it has been obsoleted but even before the internet I had problems.
Bottom lie never assume that just because a part you need isn't listed that it isn't available, I learned long ago you need to CALL but in this case you need to do your research. EVERYBODY should have the factory parts book for your car is only the CD or PDF from MyMopar.com
All in all the hose was put one and it looks like it will work. The first picture is of the temporary hose (the old hose was sitting on the return spring bracket and wore through), the second picture is of the "correct" hose.
Alan
I went online and checked the three parts stores we have in town (O'Reily, AutoZone and NAPA) along with RockAuto.
The only one they list was the universal flex hose.
This car does not have AC but the AC hose was available so looked at it but it was not even close. So I went into the stockroom and started looking through hoses and spotted one that looked just like what I had on the car so I got it. Looking at the cross reference I saw that it was used on a berage of other Mopars including a 1970 Polara with a 318. My first thought was that it was somehow missed as also being used on the 1969.
So I thought I'd lookup the factory Mopar part number because on most of the websites you can search for original part numbers.
With the 1969 number I went to the Gates website and first looked it up in their cross reference lookup. Luck has it they had the number.
On to the store sites with that number and sure enough the number comes up (although not in stock) so the hose does exist but not associated with this car on any of the sites.
I ordered one and sure enough it works (sort of), first I thought it might be a little short but figured it was because I had the aluminum radiator in the car till I looked and my reference marks to the original hose locations and noticed the original hose was another inch further out, no way this hose would have worked? even though it was said to be the correct one.
I have ran into this before on my Barracuda that with some parts the stores just don't have a reference for it, today they may say it has been obsoleted but even before the internet I had problems.
Bottom lie never assume that just because a part you need isn't listed that it isn't available, I learned long ago you need to CALL but in this case you need to do your research. EVERYBODY should have the factory parts book for your car is only the CD or PDF from MyMopar.com
All in all the hose was put one and it looks like it will work. The first picture is of the temporary hose (the old hose was sitting on the return spring bracket and wore through), the second picture is of the "correct" hose.
Alan
