I have a 2019 BX2680 with the dealer installed Curtis cab. I use it for snow removal and some tilling. This winter season the heat developed a coolant leak in the cab. In the process of trying to find the leak I decided to remove the inner heater shroud. This is located below the windshield. I searched to find how to remove this on the internet and called the dealer and Curtiss cab. No such luck on how to get apart. Had to figure it out. Access to the heater cores (there are 2 of them) and the plumbing to go with them removal of the inner plastic cover is necessary. This is accomplished by removing the fan grills with 4 screws each, 4 screws below the windshield inside the cab and 4 screw below the windshield on the outside of the cab. Once these fasteners are removed and the control knob is removed the cover comes off easily. As it turns out the hose clamps on the heater hoses needed some retightening. Only 12 hose clamps in this area. Curtiss used hose clamps that I needed to get a metric socket to tighten. Different than any I have run across before. It did sound as though this was a common issue with this cab in talking to the service man at the dealer.
KURTEE
This is a very common problem experienced when "gear clamps" are used on "rubber" hoses. I've used "" quotes to highlight commonly used terminology.
Gear clamps have serrations cut through their steel band; these serrations are used as the gear engagement surface to provide clamping force.
The unfortunate truth is that soft hoses, whether made of rubber or other similarly compressible materials, will, over time, and under the influence of elevated temperature, slowly extrude through the gear clamp serrations. The hose material will squish out through the band of the clamp. The net effect of this process is reduced clamping pressure.
There are two fixes for this problem, one that's OK and one that's truly a final fix.
Fix 1 - use gear clamps which do not have serrations - an example of such a clamp is shown in this link.
Fix 2 (the better fix) - use automotive "constant tension" spring clamps. Look at the way the rad hoses are connected on your car - these clamps just work and never lose clamping tension. An example is shown in this link.
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As long as you continue to use standard serrated gear clamps you will continue to experience leakage. An engineer who selects standard serrated gear clamps in this application is doing so purely to satisfy a cost objective. Standard gear clamps are absolutely the wrong choice for this application.
