heater hose

[Bill W.]

Who makes the most correct heater hose for a 63?

[Michael H.]

Re: heater hose

Bill,

I really don't think any of the reproductions are even close to the original 63 hose unless there's some new reproduction on the market today that I'm not aware of. Everything that I've seen in repro is closer to the 66 and later style lettering instead of the 62-65 and also all of the characters are much too bold or brilliant. The original was very thin, almost transparent dull orange and difficult to see, even when new. The style of the characters was much different also. I have some NOS 63-65 hose that I'll photograph/post, if I can find it.

I've always thought there were at least two suppliers for this hose in 63-65, one that had the GM ink stamp and one that did not so if I were preparing a car for show today, I would go with no logo at all. Actually, I think there may have been three different suppliers and the third used a series of grooves to identify the mfg. Hose that had the GM logo, had no grooves at all.

Michael

[Stephen W.]

Re: heater hose

I've also been trying to determine the correct hoses for my 64 so I will look forward to the picture. Do you have a supplier that carries it?

[Michael H.]

Re: heater hose

Steve,

I'm still looking for the scans of the hose. I'm not 100% sure if they're here or still in Illinois.

There is one original piece of 3/4" hose that I carefully removed from a 4300 mile 64 coupe about 30 years ago and it still has the dark red GM square logo. There are no ribs at all and it still has the unique 63-64 spring ring clamps with the longer ears. I'll post a close-up as soon as I find it.

In the early 70's, I purchased a few new complete Corvette heater installation packages from GM and they had the correct original hose in the package. One package was correct for 64 (installation instructions dated 64) and it had the correct non ribbed hose with the dark red GM logo on the 3/4" hose only. The 5/8" hose had grooves but no logo.

The other package was a later part number (sheet dated 67) and had the 66-67 style hose. The 5/8" had the GM in silver (almost white)letters and the 3/4" had 4 grooves.

Hopefully, some of this is here and if so, I'll scan and post. Bob Jorjorian currently has the slightly used one so I'll ask him to get a good close-up shot of the logo and I'll post it.

Michael

[Geoff C.]

[Michael H.]

Re: heater hose

Geoffrey,

I've seen and recorded the orange color logo on 63-65 cars going back as far as the early 70's when most still had the original hose still in place. I still well remember the original orange GM logo on the hose on the 64 coupe that I bought new in early 64. I have close-up pic's of this same orange logo on some of the lowest mileage original Corvettes in the country today and every one had the orange logo without grooves. The former Krughoff 1500 mile green 65 FI conv had every inch of it's original hose and it was orange letters with no grooves. His 65 3000 mile maroon 396 car had the same and so did his 20,000 mile white/red 65 FI coupe. I could go on and on.

I have the original drawings for the different style GM characters that changed from 63-65 to 66 and later and there is a substantial difference. I can't describe the difference in character but if I find the name of each, I will post them. Also, I'll be sure to bring a few samples to the Florida meet in January.

I was the very first to reproduce this hose in the 70's and both the early and late style were deadly accurate. Unfortunately, the building that housed all of the screens and plates to make the reproduction burned to the ground about a year after I started and I just never had new screens made.

I'm still looking for the pic's of the logo on original and NOS hoses and if/when I find them, I'll post them. Also, the NOS hose logo matched the originals exactly.

Michael

[Loren L.]

The 7,000 miles ZO6 that surfaced

last year out of 40 years of storage had RIBBED heater hoses with NO printing. There WAS GM printing on the hose from the expansion tank to the top of the radiator.

[Michael H.]

Re: The 7,000 miles ZO6 that surfaced

Loren,

That would be correct. Either ribbed, grooved or stamped GM but not both. Often times, one piece of 3/4" hose is ribbed and the other is stamped GM. If I remember correctly, the maroon 3000 mile 396 car had the ribbed from water pump to the "T" but had GM stamped from the "T" to the heater.