bending breather hose

Is there anyway to pre-bend breather hoses or are they pre-bent at the point of manufacturer?

I have 2 breathers from the bottom of my tank that I need to re-route and they are too short for where I need them to reach. Space is a premium under there and the stock hoses are pre-bent 90 degrees staright away.

However, going to my local "Halfords equivalent" I can buy the rubber tube I need, but I need to be able to bend it through 90 without it pinching, so am wondering if there is any trick with heating up or something?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks
Luke

[Sid Squid]

Probably not. Most hoses have a braid or weave inside the material, they are thus difficult to shape. Probably best to use rather longer hoses and keep bends quite gentle.

[embee]

"Rubber" hoses with complex shapes are moulded to the shape, i.e. they are made with the bends from scratch, not made straight and then bent. This can be done with reinforced or unreinforced designs, depending on the application.

One way to achieve reasonably sharp bends in straight hose is to find a spring which is a close fit over the hose, the spring will prevent it kinking to a large extent, but it needs to remain in place, and it will only bend as sharply as the hose construction will allow. Robust reinforcing will prevent you getting a tight bend anyway.

The other way is to use metal bends and join the rubber hose to them with hose clips, but this can get messy. Copper plumbing fittings with the solder ring bump ("Yorkshire" fittings) can be useful providing the materials are compatible and temperatures are appropriate.