72 TA w/AC Heater Hose ?
 

I'm cleaning up the engine bay on my 72 TA a little before the engine goes back in & thought it'd be a good time to replace the heater hoses going to the heater core since the hood is off. The upper hose is right there but unfortunately with ac you can't even see the lower hose much less get to it. I even removed the pass side hood hinge but still you can't even see where the hose connects to the core from the topside.

It's hard to think GM's engineers would design something as simple as coolant hose replacement that requires inner or outer fender removal but I don't see any other way short removing the inner fender well. Has anyone here come up w/a easy way to replace hoses on an ac equipped early second gen F body? BTW cutting a hole in the fender well in not an option for this car!

Jack the car up on the passenger side, remove the tire. You can then remove the inner fender and access the 5/8" heater hose nipple.

Off topic, nearly all unrestored cars 30-40 years on seem to have a faded red heater hose in that location. Is there a story as to why?

Just remove the inner fender liner. I had to do this to my 1973 Formula non A/C to service the blower motor. This was a definite engineering blunder to require this just to service a blower motor, or in your case, the heater hose. Funny that GM recommended putting a hole in the liner then half assing a screwed on cover. Absolutely ridiculous!

New cars aren't much different, have to disassemble half the car to change service items. Only difference is they have more plastic clips and retainers that break instead.