'97 Taurus GL: Garden Hose/PVC hose fittings?

3.0l 164k miles Vulcan
Having lots of "fun" doing this water pump replacement. Not nearly as easy as the Ford (or Haynes) manuals would have you believe - but that's another story.

Here's the question:

The 12" section of hose coming off the neck of the pump needs to be replaced. The problem is this hose is actually part of Ford's famous "H" hose that routes coolant both TO and AROUND the heater core. It runs into (or is fused/glued into) a molded plastic "T" with no apparent means of de-coupling. Instead of going to the dealer and buying a whole new "H" hose (and dealing with the install headaches associated with that), I'd like to just replace this 12" section. But to do that, (I think) I'd have to cut out the molded "T" and replace it with another "T" (like a garden hose or PVC "T") - something that I could attach hose clamps to on three sides. It would be really nice if the replacement "T" had the ability to shut off flow in one direction. This way, I could shut off flow to the heater core in the summer months, plus it would make flushing the core easier...

 

Also, I removed the two 5" studs from the block that the Power Steering Bracket is mounted on so that I'd have more wiggle room to install the pump behind/below it (I didn't want to de-couple the hydraulic line on the pump for fear of creating more trouble for myself). Could I replace these studs with standard bolts (with bolt heads)? The problem with the studs is (unbelievably) the ends are circular! After removing the nuts I thought I'd be able to turn the studs out with a socket or wrench, but NOOooo. One stud actually came out by hand by vibrating the bracket on it a bit, and the other one I got out with vise-grips. I was thinking I'd use the vise-grips to turn them back in, but there's only a very tiny sliver of non-threaded area at the tip to grab and I'm concerned that I may not be able to tighten them in sufficiently. Looks like they only have about 3/4" inch of threading on the block side. The other end has about 3" of threading where the nut tightens against the bracket. The replacement bolts would need to be shorter than the studs because the nut threaded in with about 1/2"-5/8" of threaded stud poking through once tightened down.

 

Ended up installing the Duralast aluminum unit. The old unit came out pretty much intact - no bearing issues and no vanes rusted off as others have mentioned. I DID notice, however, that if I held the unit up against the sky, hairline cracks could be seen through the bent edges of each vane. Hopefully this was affecting flow and my heat will be better now. Really hasn't been cold enough here yet to prove this theory, though.

Used all the original factory hoses. Didn't have time to look for replacements. Nothing is leaking so far.

One issue afterwards: I was getting a fine vibration in the steering wheel when turning right sometimes. It seems to have gone away. It was a feeling very similar to what you feel when your passenger wheels roll over the corrogated pavement in the brakedown lane on the interstates. Maybe this was air in the power steering line? I never physically detached the Power Steering unit, though - just took it off the threaded studs and pushed it aside to give a better view to the water pump below.

 

Thanks for the update..