How to Replace Upper Radiator Hose 2002-08 Dodge RAM

Okay, friends. Real quick, before we get started on this job, hands, and eyes, we're gonna be dealing with chemicals. With that said, we wanna make sure we drain the coolant, and then we're gonna flush the system to make sure we can start off with brand new coolant by the time we're done. Let's go ahead and remove our radiator cap, set that aside. Noticing that you have a plastic radiator and a plastic petcock, you might also find that the petcock just doesn't want to come out of there. If that's the case, obviously, you don't wanna continue because you could damage the radiator. So we're gonna move right along over here which is the lower hose to the thermostat housing. Remove the clamp, just be prepared because coolant will come down. I like to put a nice funnel or a box carved out like this so it will direct it into a nice bucket. At this point, we're gonna slowly take this off of here and try to direct this into our recycling receptacle. Now that the coolant is nice and drained, let's go ahead and replace our upper radiator hose. I'm just gonna grab onto this clamp and relieve it, move it off to the side there. Do the same to the other one. Now let's go ahead and grab onto that hose, give it a twist to try to break it free, take it right off of here. Do the same to the upper aspect. There it is, friends.

All right. Now it's gonna be time to install our brand new upper radiator hose. Something that I like to mention is it's a great idea to make sure that you replace your clamps. Go ahead and start on the lower aspect here. There we are. Do the same to the top. Push it all the way until it can't go any further. Now we're gonna go ahead and grab our clamp. And when we put this on, we don't wanna put it at the end of the hose, we wanna kind of give it like an eighth of an inch to even a quarter of an inch, but make sure that you're still on the actual radiator. Okay. That's bottomed out. Let's do the same thing for this, make sure it's completely bottomed out. Set it where we need it, snug it up. Continue on with a ratchet here, just turn it till it's bottomed out. Okay. Just a teeny bit more, but definitely don't make sure that you strip it out. If you do, you have to replace the clamp. Same thing here. Bottomed out, a teeny bit more. This feels good. Give them both a nice shake. Let's move along.

So now we're gonna slip the hose onto the thermostat housing here until it's completely bottomed out against the housing. Once we get the clamp on there, we wanna make sure it's approximately an eighth of an inch away from the end of the hose and, of course, we'll snug it up. Gonna be time to fill the cooling system. You want a nice funnel like this and you wanna make sure you use the proper coolant. You wanna use coolant that's either orange or, of course, the universal coolant, but definitely not green. I'm gonna go with universal here, I'm gonna fill it right up. Now, after you've run your vehicle for a while and you've burped out all the air in it, you wanna make sure you go ahead and put your radiator cap back on here. Push this right down, turn it so it's nice and tight, and now we're gonna fill the overflow. Okay. Close the hood, take it for a road test.