[bill ryder]

A little knowledgeable help would be appreciated. I will add a couple pics, quality not great, of my lower NOS hose, 22 years ago,. I am concerned with the ALL OR AU after the RADIATOR and the NE? after the part #. I am going to have my upper hose, also NOS, also 22 years ago, restamped. After MANY, MANY years of wiping, the yellow paint has went away. Guess that means I don't clean the lower as much! I appreciate any comments.

[bigpop]

Bill, I know for the 65 cars, the upper radiator hose had GATES printed in yellow.
(Gates Rubber Company), I have seen two factory originals. For 64, I never saw one, I can get you a picture of the Gates on my 65 4b NOS hose. That way, you can see the size and font,etc. Also, the hose upper, had a blue line underneath, that was actually
litttle slashes configured to look like a line.I sold that hose but will try to get a picture, maybe 64's were the same??? Larry B.

[dld]

You may check out PACE CAR JEFF he sells on ebay. Has repro hose's for a lot of cars .

[Pacecarjeff]

Lots of different font styles and vendors were used in the early years. Gates, Goodyear, Dayco, and others...
Most (not all) very early Pontiac hoses had yellow markings.
Some had very light blue stripes, some white stripes, some yellow, some no stripes.

Since you want the group number like your lower...

I recommend making marking it just like this first picture.

[John V.]

Bill, I have no expertise on hoses, but the GM AU marking is pretty common. Other less common are GM AY, GM JU and some others.

My speculation is that the AU, AY, & JU may indicate the hose dia. combinations at the 2 ends.

The letter codes after the p/n are most likely the Manifest Code used to identify the Hose during Final Assembly.

Manifest Codes would not be useful for Service Replacement, only the p/n would be used for that purpose, but the Service Replacement Hoses may have been marked with the Manifest Codes anyway. And for reproduction, where you are trying to mimic the Original Equipment look, they would be necessary.

From what I see of your lower rad hose markings, it looks like there is a Gr. No. marking. This would only be useful for Service Replacement, so I doubt that was stamped on the O.E. Hoses.

And I have not seen that on the Repro Hoses for the Corvette hobby. Generally speaking, I would expect the O.E. GM Hoses to have been marked in a similar manner whether they were Pontiac or Chevy Hoses.

I'm not sure who made the O.E. Hoses, whether it was AC Delco or some other captive GM Div.

If Gates produced O.E. Hoses for GM, I have to say none of the repro hoses I've looked at show a Gates marking on them.

Larry, I'd like to see pix of the NOS Hose you have. NOS doesn't mean O.E., but interesting that you have seen Gates marked original hoses on a couple '65s.

I think this is the guy dld mentions:

http://broachbuster.com/id34.htm

He may know more about the letter coding.

[John V.]

Well, looks like I jumped in too late!

[Pacecarjeff]

LOL - oops
I always just assumed that the AU meant "Automotive Use".???
Goodyear still embosses their hoses with that code even today.
I am sure it has nothing to do with the size.

Also I have seen quite a few marked AY, (very early years) and for some reason Pontiac used EB?
I have a pretty large collection of original hoses -
that was just a small (but typical) sample.

And thanks for the recommendations!!

[dld]

Hey, PCJ ..welcome to the Pontiac world. Don

[bill ryder]

PCJ (I like that). I tried to call you the other day, BUT this is GREAT. I like all the input. This is what I'm thinking. We will use the RADIATOR AU on the rad end. We will also use the part# and NH after the part# and NOT put the GR on. That makes good sense. THANKS John. Also want the yellow over score. My hoses definitely had them. What do you think???

[Pacecarjeff]

I know what to do..
I always wondered why there was a Gr.# on some of them? - makes sense that it would be an over the counter part.
The assembly line used the application code (NH) - which is also shown on the vehicle build sheet.
That way the line worker would know which hose to grab without having to think about it.

The GR.# hoses don't have an application code shown- which would not mean anything to the parts counter guy.
He used the part number, and also the gr.# would tell him where the part was stored in the parts warehouse.

Bill, sorry the phone number I gave you only works M-F 9-5 EST.

I am a Pontiac guy too.
Back in the day (yes - I am an old guy)
I daily drove these Pontiacs:
1976 Firebird (like Rockford)
1978 Trans Am - Black - graphics delete
1979 Trans AM - White with Black hood bird
1981 Turbo Formula
None were new - could not afford a brand new car back then.

[bill ryder]

PCJ, If that is OK, you can do it the last way I posted. I appreciate you for wanting to DO IT RIGHT!!!!

[bigpop]

PCJ and John V, I have seen two original from the factory upper radiator hoses on 65 GTO.My friend Kip Bishop drove up to my house with his brand ,spankin' new 65 GTO.
I will attest that ,several items are fresh in my mind, even 45+ years later.I saw another one, in the late 90s which was original and exactly like Kip's. It had GM (smaller font that you show) with the P/N ....581. NO GROUP NUMBER!, Then it had the arrow with Radiator,notRAD. Above all was GATES. All the printing was in yellow. I will get a picture of my 4b NOS hose for 65 and have someone post it. I don't know how to do it. It has the GATES but in a different place from 3x2s.
I used to chuckle when I worked for a GATES distributor in my career. I found it eerie that it brought up that image often, before I even got into my 65 GTO Larry B.

[bigpop]

PCJ< a few years ago, when I first saw your hoses on eBay, I EMed you, asking if you could put GATES on a hose for me, I would even supply a picture and dimensions. At the time you said "no" .your perogative of course. Larry Banks

[Pacecarjeff]

Sorry Larry, The reasoning behind that is a little selfish on my part.

There were quite a few vendors making hoses for GM back in the day.
Each manufacturer was required to meet a certain spec as required by GM.

I assume GM wanted the part number and application code on the hoses for easy ID during production. Other then that each supplier interpreted the spec in their own way and marked the hoses differently. Gates may have stamped their name on the hoses? but that must have been during a very limited period, because I have not seen that on known original cars (doesn't mean it did not happen, just I can't verify it)

So here I am making reproduction hoses...
It is difficult enough keeping track of all the numbers, shapes and applications being used.
For me to add multiple designs, and different fonts, and special logos for individual hose numbers would make me absolutely crazy.

So what i did basically - was pick one style and go with it.
I chose the way Goodyear marked them - simply because I liked that one the best.
I had found more original Goodyear examples, so it was easy for me to verify.
Goodyear seemed pretty consistent in the way they marked them, and I thought it looked more historic.

I have made quite a few specials - For Example: the 71 Firebirds used many of the same numbers as the 79 Firebirds, and some South Florida 79 TA guys wanted a marking that was more late 70's then late 60's - so I have a few versions of certain numbers especially for those guys. ( they brought me their original hoses and i copied them) I just did not want to have many different versions of the same part number, I thought it would get to complicated from a production point.

IMO - I really think putting Gates on the hose would give it more of an impression of being aftermarket and not typical of GM production.

Who knows, maybe the assembly line ran short of that hose number and had to requisition hoses in a big rush from GATES. They did a lot of crazy things - whatever it took to finish the car and get it shipped.

[Pacecarjeff]

a couple later year markings I have done.

[bigpop]

Jeff, thanks, I undersood when you said "no'' to the Gates printing.

I know that the secret is yours to keep, but, how long and how many attempts
before you got the yellow to look factory. I see that it ,on the hoses I have to be
a light non-crisp light yellow, with a line of darker solid yellow to demarkate the shape of the number or letter.Almost like the solid line "bleeds from the initial attempt. I
hope you understand, describing this isn't easy! lol Larry B.

[Pacecarjeff]

I know exactly what you mean - I hate doing yellow hoses -
For some reason the yellow is more difficult.
Sometimes it takes me many "tries" before I am satisfied.

[Keith Seymore]

I have an old photo of my '65 lower radiator hose, and there's not a lot of markings on there.

Per the build sheet, the upper is coded "NL" and the lower is a "NF"....

K

[Pacecarjeff]

Thanks for the look at the your buildsheet.
Just goes to show how many different markings are possible.

You could have 10 original cars - and none would have exactly the same hose marks.
They were stamped one at a time by hand.

[Pacecarjeff]

Here is a look at the hose I just made for Bill's 64 GTO.
re-marked his original hose - Turned out good.

I have seen these hoses both way's - - with GM logos, and without like this one.
What do you Pontiac guy's really prefer?