Oetiker Clamps

Repair or modification of Boston Whaler boats, their engines, trailers, and gear
jimh
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Oetiker Clamps

Postby jimh » Wed Mar 23, 2016 10:45 am

Oetiker clamps are often seen in original factory installation of hoses on outboard engines, particularly in engines made by BRP.

Oetiker clamps are one-time use clamps. They are pinched together with a special tool. They are loosened by carefully releasing or cutting the clamp in a manner that avoids causing any damage to the hose it clamps upon.

The manual pincer tool is Oetiker 14100082 Standard Jaw and is available for a modest cost of about $20. See

http://www.amazon.com/Oetiker-14100082- ... B00375LRKC

You can also buy a kit with the tool and a nice assortment of clamps for about $45. See

http://www.amazon.com/Oetiker-18500060- ... B008L4874S

Removal of an Oetiker clamp is demonstrated in a nice, short recorded presentation linked below:

https://youtu.be/hii041PCN8M

For Oetiker clamps that do not have the locking mechanism as part of the band, the band must be cut in two at the point where the band is raised above the hose, at the pinched area.

rlboeri
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Re: Oetiker Clamps

Postby rlboeri » Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:01 pm

What is the advantage of this over a regular stainless hose clamp?

jimh
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Re: Oetiker Clamps

Postby jimh » Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:24 pm

By "regular stainless steel hose clamp" I presume you are referring to a metal band with a thread pattern cut into the band and with a worm screw mechanism attached at one end to allow mating and tightening.

The advantage of the Oetiker clamp is smaller size, less weight, faster assembly, lower cost, better resistance to loosening, less damage to the hose, more uniform pressure distribution, more consistency in manufacturing. And they were invented in Switzerland, therefore the Swiss Watch of hose clamps.

rlboeri
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Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:45 am

Re: Oetiker Clamps

Postby rlboeri » Wed Mar 23, 2016 4:18 pm

Well OK then. As usual, Jim is a wealth of information. guess I will use the "O" clamps from now on.

Bob

jimh
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Re: Oetiker Clamps

Postby jimh » Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:26 am

The most commonly used clamp appears to be in the Oetiker 167 series, which is a stainless steel clamp with a preformed clamping area (often called "ear pinch clamps"). The range of hose diameter that can be properly clamped is limited, so accordingly there are many sizes of clamps available. Below is a chart of Oetiker clamps sizes with guide lines in blue for inch fractionals which I created to help with sizing the clamps from their metric dimensions to our more common inch dimensions:

Image

An earlier discussion has some good suggestions on where to find retailers offering these clamps at quite affordable prices. See

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/020693.html

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brill
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Re: Oetiker Clamps

Postby brill » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:45 am

Great info. Thanks. I am in the process of replacing some of the fuel hose in my Conquest and had ordered some pinch clamps for the 3/4" O.D. fuel hose. I ordered the clamps from McMaster-Carr and I was happy to see that they were Oetiker branded. A package of 25 clamps cost $5.55. The pincers were $20 and Oetiker branded as well.