1995 F250 PSD 4x4 5-speed, manual A/C, 150,000 miles

Discovered inop windshield washer on the way to the cabin last week. Got that fixed (dirty switch contacts + clogged nozzles), but whilst diagnosing it, reaching for the washer motor wiring, I managed to break the plastic vacuum capillary that "energizes" the floor/defrost door "motor", which resides under the hood above the blower motor. I s'pose I understand the idea behind the plastic; won't flatten like ordinary vacuum hose rubber. But dang-ol', tell y'whut, that stuff is WICKED brittle when it's ten below friggin' outside. And of course, it breaks off with about 1 mm of hose protruding from the "harness" within which it's ganged along with a bundle of wires, coming thru the firewall.

This was spitting distance from the middle of nowhere, so we started rummaging around the cabin for a suitable repair. Julie remembers we have an empty Purell (hand sanitizer) pump bottle in the pantry, unscrews the top, and yo! that little tube that scavenges the goo from the bottom of the bottle into the pump is about the smallest ID tubing we could find. I managed to cut away enough of the harness tape to expose a little more of the broken-off hose, to give me some breathing room. Slipped the Purell tubing over the hose, and dang, it's not a bad fit. I found some other, larger diameter ribbed tubing to slip over the OD of the repair to give it some rigidity, duct taped each end of the repair piece to the original hose, lit off the engine and voila!, it throws the lever on the door motor just fine, and no hissy vacuum leak.

Here's the result; the morbidly curious can click the pic. View is from under the hood, toward the rear. Firewall is in background, blower motor at bottom, wire/hose harness coming thru firewall is at right (note my hack job to expose more hose). Door "motor" is near top left.



But geez, this is just TOO Red Green. Adhesive on the duct tape will last, what, a year? There's GOT to be a more "orthodox" repair procedure for sitches like this, short of re-running the whole effing line. Is there anything made to interface with this kind of vacuum line for a more permanent solution?

 

Heat Shrink tubing.

 

I just use a piece of regular rubber vacuum line to splice the brittle plastic.

It's made in a size that seals well to the plastic lines and what, 19 cents a foot at the parts store?.

Needed quite a bit last year when I changed intake manifolds.

 

I used a double layer of red heat shrink to repair a red line on my 94, worked great.

 

Have done this myself...works slick, seals well and stays put...oh, and bonus, is super cheap. If piece is cut/installed neatly it even looks like it kinda belongs there. Don't know how air tight heat shrink would be alone on plastic tubing (let alone concern about melting the tubing itself getting it to seal), but this I know works (suppose you could do heat shrink over the rubber vac line splice too but would say it is totally unnecessary).

 

I imagine the heat shrink with the glue inside would work pretty well. I'll have to keep that in mind next time I have to fix one of those tubes on my truck. Last time I just used some small diameter rubber vacuum tubing for a tight fit over the plastic tubing.

 

I've done the vacuum line myself. Works great! I'll try to remember the heat shrink though. That should seal pretty well.