Coolant hoses & crossover pipe - Sources/thoughts

[Meanmyz]

Hi guys,

This spring I picked up a second ZR-1, a Competition Yellow 1995 with about 50,000 miles that I found in sunny southern California. The car is not perfect, but it has potential.

Anyway I recently noticed a coolant leak that appears to be some loose bolts on the water pump.

In trying to get to the water pump, I removed the throttle body extension (air horn) and then decided if I was to retorque all water pump bolts, it would be hard to get in there if I didn't remove the coolant crossover tube.

This was great fun. If the spring clamps that kept working their way to where you couldn't reach them wasn't enough, the coolant hoses just wouldn't come off of the crossover tube! When I got them loose I found that the pipe was basically rusted onto the hoses.

I figured that I would just clean these areas up, repaint and voilla!..like new! ...well there are quite few areas inside the pipe that are also bubbled up with corrosion (structurally intact but corroded).

The coolant hoses are undoubtedly original, as they are date stamped from 1995.

My questions...

The hoses are not bubbling out in any areas, but I gave them a workout in trying to get them off.

-Would you replace all the coolant hoses because of age?

-Is there a source for these hoses other than White Racing or using Samco silicone hoses? I would like to buy something that looks original (GM preferably, but not necessarily) Also, I absolutely am not digging Kurt, as we are very fortunate to have suppliers like him for our cars, but maybe there is another (cheaper) source?


The coolant crossover pipe...

-Should this undoubtedly be replaced?

I do see that KW has a replacement made out of stainless steel. (awesome, but Ouch$$$!

Hoses (ouch$$$) + pipe (ouch$$$) = Ouch, Ouch$$$$ (Maybe that's the price to play, but that is why I ask)

I would really appreciate some thoughts on this. Thanks!

Jeff