We had a coolant leak - so decided to replace hoses, coolant crossover, coolant tower, thermostat.
Everything went fine until the coolant tower replacement.
Following instructions in " Coolant Part Question 1999 XJ8", made bent 8mm wrenches. Was able to loosen back 8mm bolts but they jammed up against air intake housing behind the tower & no amount of jiggling worked to remove those bolts.
Has anyone figured out how to remove those 2 rear bolts?
Luckily the old housing was in good shape so I left it in place. I am attaching a picture of a new thermostat housing in place to illustrate where the bolts I could not remove are located. Old housing is still in place.
I ended up using part of the new tower kit (thermostat housing front piece) as the new thermostat included in the aluminum tower kit did not fit old housing.
Thanks!

 

Many of us just break the old tower into pieces after stuffing a rag inside cylinder head, then use socket head screws and a ball drive to secure the new one.

 

That is one solution for sure.
Thanks.

 

However. . . lots of folks have reported that the rear bolts are just too long to be removed without raising the intake manifold.

I was able to break apart my tower and the bolts were just short enough to then allow a clean pull. But not everybody has been that fortunate. Someone suggested that an assembler may have grabbed the wrong bolts when the engine was bolted up since the tower goes on before the manifold . . .

If that is what you have to do, then the installation is really easy since there is enough room for 1/4 in ratchet. Otherwise socket head screws work; so does cutting a slot in the shorter of the four screws to allow a thin blade screwdriver. There are many threads that talk through this issue on this and the XK8 forum.

 

If the rear bolts are indeed too long (as was with my car), it only adds 5 minuts to the process.
Just loosen all nuts of the manifold a couple of turns, but not till the point where they can be removed.
This will most likely prevent any of the gaskets to unlodge.
Lift the manifold at the front while flipping out the bolts, and you are good to go.
A black spray of paint on the new tower will put less attention on it once re-installed.

 

Your 100% correct. For future reference, cut off some of that long bolt or buy a shorter bolt

 

Great idea!!

 

When I replaced the timing chain tensioners on my 2001 VDP recently, I also replaced the water pump, and had a new, aluminum thermostat tower ready to put on too, but once I ran across the removal problem of the old thermostat tower, I left it for another day and further research.

Since then I've read about the "break it apart" method, and the "peek-a-boo under the intake manifold" method, so now I guess I'm ready.

I've followed ericjanson's lead and painted the tower, and have also added a special red tower cap, this ensures high performance, fast flow, and cooler temperatures!

Now all I've got to do is get around to fitting it.


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