Its finally got warm enough to lie on the floor in the garage and I decided to tackle changing the hoses from the engine to the oil cooler. Not a bad job I thought. I did the RHS with no problem; But the LHS from the engine to the intermediate junction has me stumped. I had a hell of a time wiggling the old one out once it was disconnected, and can't figure out how to get the new one back into place. I know exactly where it has to go, but there seems to be no way to maneuver it around all the suspension, and assorted other pipes, fan shroud etc. Can anybody who has done this shed some light ? or am I just being daft ?

 

My son in law , who is a master mechanic qualified for cars, trucks and coaches and heavy equipment, came out to the garage, looked it over and had it installed and bolted up in 5 minutes

It's a pleasure to watch him work.

 

Always great to get some professional assistance when you find yourself in a tight spot....

 

any advice on what the expert did to get the hose in? This is on my list as I have a few drops of oil on the garage floor.

 

The only one that caused any issue was the LHS ( North american drivers side ) that runs from the engine block to the intermediate connection. The others were easy. Its a bit hard to describe what he did but here goes :

He took the engine end of the hose and stuffed it up close to its final position.

He then too that same end and pulled/pushed it along the bottom of the engine towards the RHS ( N.A. Passenger ) while feeding the rest of the hose up into the area around the sway bar.

When he had pushed pretty much all the hose up there he then took the aluminium end with all the bends and the intermediate connector a fed it back towards the LHS , through the suspension parts it needs to get around, and towards where it mates with the front hose. This action also pulled the engine block connector back towards its final position.

He made it look childishly simple ...ever though I had been sweating and cursing the thing for hours

 

thanks for the details. this is on my to-do list, as I'm getting a drop of oil seeping out at the rear hose / pipe junction every few days. The stories of catastrophic hose failure have me spooked and also motivated.

Z