[BigV]

I've given up for the night.

I'll probably go at it again, but just to clean up my tools and shit for the night. I found the circlip that had sprung off and disabled my newly acquired pliers. Buoyed by this small Christmas miracle, I tried using them on the one spring hose clamp that came off with the carcass of the hose I'd cut out of the car. It's the kind with little swiveling bits at the tips of the jaws of the pliers and a locking pawl to capture your success... well, I'm not very good at using these pliers and they slipped off the hose clamp and clamp sprung open hitting my index and middle fingers and thumb of my left hand, instantly numbing them. They're like wooden fingertips. Only now, an hour later have they begun to tingle with the promise of future pain.

I tore through half the diameter of one of the hose remnants in an effort to twist/drag/pull it off the barb. The thing is, I can't get the hose clamp closed tightly enough, no, the tool like vicegrips or hoseclamp pliers or c-clamp closed tightly enough to open the hoseclamp to the maximum, permitting me to slide the affair off the fitting. The hoses themselves are a little swollen just past the clamp, like really old, weakened hoses are wont to do, and I can't enlarge the clamp enough to get over the bigger spot. And even when I have to hoseclamp opened to the greatest extent I can manage, it appears to still be tight enough to keep me from sliding the hose off the barb.

And all this is complicated by very close quarters, that's the worst part. Being cold and dark outside is by comparison merely annoying, I've worked in those conditions before. Sucks, but whatever. I've take off lots more parts than I thought I would have to when I began this ill-advised journey, a couple ends of other coolant lines, an electrical connection to my alternator, a panel in the engine compartment just above the radiator, the oil filter...

Oh, I should have said before, this is the hose that goes from the oil sending unit (or whatever the fuck that thing is called that the oil filter spins onto) to the oil cooler. It's a very weird hose, it's F shaped. A capital F modeled in noodley hose. Anyhow this molded hose will fit back in pretty easy, it's the right hose I'm sure (unless the diameter is fucked on one of the hoses, who knows until you hook it up). But I can't get these last two stubs of hose off. And I can't cut them off (not easily anyhow, they put up a pretty good fight to my sawsall and pruning shears. The parts remaining have a spring steel girdle protecting them. And I have already hurt myself with BLUNT instruments under the hood, I think switching to razor knives at this stages is a bad idea.

Fuck. I'm tired and frustrated and I have no way to work tomorrow. I'm working on a plan to borrow Twil's car, but that's got its own complications. And the bus?!? I shit you not, the route planner sent me on the bus to the ferry from the peninsula to Seattle and from Seattle to the island. I could not dissuade it. That's ninety minutes of boat time, not counting riding the bus to and from the ferry docks at the ends of each trip. Fortunately the ferry dock in Seattle is the only one I need for both the arrival and departure. Jesus. Fucking car.

This is not a complex job. But it is proving very problematic.

I'm open to your suggestions, preferably some magic way to get these hose ends off.