Ever had to change the heater hose?!?

[jimstolz76]

Wow. I've got a leak in my heater hose (hose going from the block into the heater core). I've spent the better part of 5 hours trying to get the friggin hose clamp off the block end! WTF is up with the way this thing is laid out? It's almost dead center on the rear of the engine, under the entire manifold, above the transmission, and has some metal (or maybe hardened plastic) pipe running right across behind it where you need to get a tool in there.

Can't work above it, can't work below it, can't get a tool all the way in to get the clamp off. The best I've done is to get a stubby set of needlenose pliers on there and was able to squeeze the clamp, but because they were stubby I couldn't get enough leverage to get the clamp off!

Looks like my wife is going to miss school and work tomorrow because of this... and I may have to pay a shop to fix it. Unbelievable! This should have been a 10 minute fix.

edit - sorry should have posted that it's a 2005 LT automatic