I went to replace the upper radiator hose on my '65 last weekend and had a bit of a hard time. I hadn't changed it since I bought the truck, and it always looked a little funny to me, but I never bothered to check it out. When I pulled it off, the thermostat housing was 1.5" diameter and the radiator was 1.75", while the hose was a molded to shape one that was 1.75" I.D. Needless to say, it was squeezed down quite a bit so that it would seal. When I went into the parts store, he looked up the hose for my application and brought one out that was the exact same shape as mine, but it was 1.5" I.D. on both ends. My truck has the 4-row heavy duty radiator, does it have a bigger inlet than the standard radiator? The guy at the store had me go in the back and look at all his hoses for one that might work--none, then we looked through his book where they are listed by size and found a couple that might work, but I didn't want to have to order them and then wait ro try them. We also looked for a thermostat housing that uses a 1.75" hose, but no luck. So I ended up buying a 1.75" flex hose and a reducer that slips inside one end to bring it down to 1.5" for the thermostat housing. It works fine, but I was just wondering if they had radiators with two different size inlets. I guess this is a pretty stupid topic, but I just felt like asking.
