Originally Posted By: FowVay
I'm at 18 years and 275,000 miles on the original hoses... I'll post when she blows!
I'm with you on this.
We've driven cars from cradle to grave on the original hoses.
The last hose that I had fail in service was the upper radiator hose on my MGB sometime back in the early eighties.
We were on back roads ( maybe RT 42) going south from Lexington (Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, a race weekend) when the hose let go.
I limped the car into the next town by running the engine briefly, so as not to overheat it badly, and then coasting along.
I repeated this proceedure until we reached a small town.
It was early evening on a Sunday, but this was an era when real service stations still existed. The small town had one with a nice selection of hoses, one of which looked like it would work. I installed it with the minimal tool kit I always kept in the B, filled the radiator with coolant, and we went on our merry way for the 180 or so miles home.
Since the car was an MGB, anything OEM outside of the engine, gearbox and rear end was of suspect quality. I could also tell some tales about the wonky electrics and hydraulics, but that would be way OT. I will say that these were simple machines and pretty easy to work on with good parts availability even today.