Yes.. silicone hose is up to the job (it's designed for it). If you know the inside diameter of the existing hose you can order a length of tubing any colour you like (but keep it tasteful!
) from the many suppliers on eBay etc.
Make sure you use a tube of the right diameter. Measure the thickess of the outlet stub behind the sealing flange, rather than the end of teh old rubber tube, since that's likely to be stretched a little.
If in doubt, go for a size 2mm down in size from what you measure, since silicone hose is very stretchy, so it will easily fit, even if it's slightly too small.
Buy new hose clips .. but try to find some with a smooth inner sleeve rather than the cheaper ones which have the teeth exposed, otherwise they will cut into the soft silicone hose. There are special clips for silicone hoses for this reason.. but they're not *essential* if you have reasonable regular hoses and go easy.
Finally, when you tighten up your new hose clips, stick some silicone sealant into teeth that are going to end up in the worm drive. That will set (semi-permanent, so you can still undo the clip if you need to) but will stop the clip becoming un-screwed.
Silicone hose is slightly more springy than rubber, so the hose becomes "pumped" by the cooling system.. and that may cause the hose clips to come undone if they're not very tight (and of course, you have soft hoses, so you can't do them up overly-tight).
Ralf S.
