DIY: Replacing heater hose pipe T's *important* (12 Viewers)

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At this age, I think most will break when touched.

Don't touch unless you have replacements ready! Especially if you're driving at night, out of state, without tools.
Mine had a VERY small amount of see seepage, some dried coolant, but not much. I had timing belt done at 100k and should have done it then. Sounds like you had a close call?
 
These are the T's to get: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000DCNGIS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Just did mine and upgraded all the hoses back there with red HPS silicone hoses as well. No more need to worry for the life of the truck.
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damn those are some expensive hoses, but they look nice and im sure theyre good stuff
 
Just replaced my tees and hoses. I barely touched one of them and it broke in half. I will say that the job was annoyingly hard. Everything from getting to the hoses to working the clamps off to breaking lose the old hoses from the pipes took longer than it should have. Obviously worth it though. Laying my wife's yoga mat on top of a blanket across the engine made things a little more comfortable.

Question: can I top off the coolant with water or should I buy a gallon of the red antifreeze? I was going to do all the fluids at once in a few months when I hit 180000.
 
You can do one of the Asian 50/50 antifreezes to top off. Zerex has one. It is red and meets Toyota/Lexus specifications.
 
Did mine today after having the parts sitting around for ages. Most satisfying job on a car ever. I had all the right tools, clamps and hoses came right off and everything went on without a hitch. I parked facing downhill so I didn't lose much fluid. I'm kind of disappointed that my tees didn't crumble before my eyes since I was convinced my engine was on borrowed time. Now they're trail spares.

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At this age, I think most will break when touched.
Don't touch unless you have replacements ready! Especially if you're driving at night, out of state, without tools.

Just replaced these T's for the first time on our 2000 LX. T's were still pretty strong. One of them had a few minuscule blisters on the inside. Only 82kmiles on the vehicle. So this is probably more about service life then just age.
 
Was gonna do this job this last weekend, popped the hood and realized the previous owner already did it, score!
 
Managed to finally get the time for this job. Thanks to IH8MUD and all the members on here for the good advice. This job took me longer than most, about an 1hr30min. But i don't turn a wrench that often.

As you can see there was some evidence supporting replacing the Ts, but IMHO they could have lasted another 110,000 miles. Replaced all hoses, they were a bit swollen but nothing to bad.


Edit: Top T is from hot side.

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Replaced mine today, 140k miles. Took me just over an hour. All oem, reused existing clamps. I’m glad I did hoses along with Ts, the old ones were really hard to pull off. I ended up just cutting most of them. I lost just enough coolant to make me nervous, then it stopped flowing.

Passenger side (new on bottom):

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The new hose (the small diameter one) I got from Toyota was longer than existing but it worked out fine.

Driver’s side (new on bottom):

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The Ts seemed pretty solid at first but I was able to break this one by hand without too much effort. I’ll change them again in 90k with my timing belt.

Huge THANK YOU to everyone on this forum who posted here before and who make these jobs so easy for a novice like me!
 
Replaced today. Appears PO had done one T before and hoses were a bit over-clamped and weeping a little. The cold return one (I think, closer to passenger side right) was actually more brittle. Maybe it was original. Had the hoses to replace as well so it was nice just to be able to cut everything out. A little difficult to get hoses off fittings I used a hooked razor that I have for removing golf grips that saved the day. Looks good to go with the 4 seasons T's.

BTW got hoses from Cruiser Addiction. Good price and great service.
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Cross-post from my build thread.

I had Steve at RPM in Monrovia look at my heater T's a few weeks ago. He thought they looked OK. It's possible they were replaced by the PO as the clamps on the vertical hoses are not OEM.

I decided to replace T's, hoses and clamps. I used the Four Seasons T's and silicon hoses from HPS.

Before.

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I razor-bladed the old hoses off and then assembled the new sets.

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Here's what they look like installed.

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I just replaced mine. One fell apart as soon as my hand touched it, and I had to fish bits out of all 3 hoses. The other must have been replaced before, it looked to be in pretty good shape (but didn't look new).

However, the new ones are noticeably smaller than the old ones, and with reusing the OEM clamps it's leaking like crazy. Not dripping or spurting, but a steady stream of coolant.

I have some towing to do tomorrow, and am leaving town this weekend, so I'm just going to get some worm gear clamps at whatever store is still open and tighten the crap out of them.
 
I'm short on time so I can't read through all the posts at the moment. But I just want to confirm that there are 2 sets of heater hoses on my 2001 LX470? My indy mechanic replaced 3 heater hoses and T fitting a few months back after he called me saying it was leaking during an oil change. I took my truck to a Lexus dealer for an oil change yesterday because I needed a loaner and they called me saying the T fitting and heater hoses were leaking and needed replacing. I looked when I got the truck back and sure enough it's leaking but it's the one on the passenger side...are there 2 sets? The one of the driver side looks newer, no leaking...they are right next to each other though.
 

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