At the TRF summer party, on the TR250 side street, a 250 expert named
Mike told me that there was an early and later style of bumble bee hoses
for the TR250. The earlier where smooth black hoses with the yellow
stripe "imbedded" in the rubber in some way -- can't remember exactly
what he said, and the later style used the canvas covered hoses with the
yellow strip painted on -- maybe silk screened or something.
There was a TR250 there with what I thought were NOS earlier style
hoses. There were also some home made ones there.
A complication in my mind is that both styles appear to have had the
yellow stripe applied when the hose stock was straight, and it was bent
to shape later. The bending makes the width of the stripes change in the
bends. Seems hard to reproduce that and look correct -- not that it
can't be done.
I have a few original canvas covered hoses left and the stripe was 1/2"
wide with a 1/2" space between. The pitch of the spiral was something
like this...
Imagine this is the hose with the stripes..
1
/////
2
The right hand edge of the yellow stripe (1) at the top edge of the hose
was directly above the left hand edge of the next stripe (2) along the
bottom of the hose -- does that make any sense?
Don Malling
Sterrett Smith wrote:
> I know last summer, there was a flurry of activity surrounding the issue
> of yellow striped water hoses. Was is Gary Fuqua who was the lucky
> bugger who found some NOS hoses? Since none of us are as lucky as Gary,
> did anybody figure out a definitive way to make these hoses? Such as do
> we start with the green hose (for proper texture), then paint it black,
> then yellow? If so, which paint will w/ stand the heat and possible
> flexing on installation? What is the distance between yellow stripes and
> proper width of the stripe?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Sterrett Smith
> '68 TR250 with the water pump out which lead to this rabbit trail.
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