2005 Tahoe Slow Coolant Loss

Update:

Had an incident the other day. The passenger side heater core T connector broke off and lost about 8 quarts of coolant (total capacity is about 18 I think). Had steam rolling out from under the hood so I pulled into a lot, opened the hood and there was coolant everywhere. Luckily I was only a mile away so I drove slow and limped it home. Never overheated thank the Lord. Once I got it home I left the hood open overnight and let it cool off. Then rinsed pretty much everything under the hood. So got the parts, fixed the issue and it drove perfectly for a 5 hour trip. I guess I will be keeping gallon of the premixed Dexcool from now on.

It turns out the previous person who worked on that same qd removed it and directly attached the hose to the T on the heater core. So I got the T from O'Reilly's for $30 and the qd for $8 on Amazon's resold. Hopefully this resolved any leaks if that was the problem.


This is the part the previous person removed. It must have been broken so they connected the hose that goes from the pump to this qd fitting directly to the T at the heater core.


Curious. worm clamp. Why no spring clamp? Is it from the factory that way? Both hoses are bulging a bit. Going to be replacing these 22 year old hoses soon.


Broken T connector at the heater core as I found it. Hot steam and coolant blew everywhere. What a mess....

According to other posts both sides should be replaced at the same time. Looks like I will be replacing the right side qd and T as well. And both left and right hoses.

I feel like it's better to connect the hose directly to the T-fitting. Those quick connects don't quick dis-connect!
Extra parts in the way to fail, with no benefit that I can come up with..

Although I still installed them on mine after replacing T's and hoses..

mikez71 said:

I feel like it's better to connect the hose directly to the T-fitting. Those quick connects don't quick dis-connect!
Extra parts in the way to fail, with no benefit that I can come up with..

Although I still installed them on mine after replacing T's and hoses..

Click to expand...

The ears on the qd works fine for me. Takes a bit of patience but I used both hands on each side. Just make sure there is no junk behind the ears that would keep someone from depressing them. Also ...there is no barb on the T. Plus the hose is stretched unless using aftermarket hose cut to add that extra amount of length. In my case this didn't help and likely added some downward strain on the T until it snapped. You're playing with fire my man. J/K. So I guess that's a good question. Would a new qd extension have prevented this? I don't know I bought the truck at 10 yo. So apparently the qd doesn't last that long because my qd has always been missing. Who knows.

Matahoe said:

Curious. worm clamp. Why no spring clamp? Is it from the factory that way? Both hoses are bulging a bit. Going to be replacing these 22 year old hoses soon.

Click to expand...

See that plastic factory "clamp" on the larger hose? See the line on it that sort of looks like a crack? My 2005 LM7 split there. Amazingly it never blew off before I saw it and put a worm clamp on it.