Technical Heater pipe / coolant bleed screw snapped off

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Technical Heater pipe / coolant bleed screw snapped off

Jamsen

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Hello,

My girlfriend has been complaining of a running water noise behind the dashboard of her 500 and also noticed some drips on the drive after parking up. I took the car out for a ride the other day and noticed that the AC would only blow hot while I was driving and went cold as soon as I stopped and was idle.

I had a look under the bonnet after my drive and found that there was coolant dripping from the top of a pipe, I'll attach a picture. From what I've researched this is the bleed valve and the screw seems to have snapped off at some point and is now leaking coolant. Am I able to replace the screw if I can drill it out and find a replacement or does the entire unit need replacing?

Has anyone else had this problem or can anyone help with part numbers? I cant seem to find anything online.

Thanks
 

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I have the exact same problem and am in the process of sorting it,,, what a total pig of a job the correct way to fix is a new pipe, or remove the pipe and attempt to remove the screw section( I'm told its the same size as a number plate screw, plastic). Jerry fix, piece of rubber on top+1p coin and a G clamp to hold it permanently in place?
Don't forget to top up the coolant.
 
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I tried with the old pipe, success! though this was off the car in a vice, drilled out then shoved a flat blade screw driver in and unscrew the broken bit.
Oh if you do manage to get this far you will need a tiny O ring on the new screw to seal it as it was part of the missing top bit
 

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Thanks for the reply and part number. How easy was it to remove the entire hose? I think replacing the unit would be best if I need to take the hose off to drill it anyway.
 
How easy was it to remove the entire hose?

Medium to hard
How good are you at diy? if you're not a confident car mechanic don't try, whilst not too bad, it was a total pain to cut the clip where the hose meets the bulkhead, that also required the removal of the battery/tray/battery metal tray, air intake and cooling fan, you also need to un clip several plastic pipe clips.

Our metal pipe that runs behind the exhaust along the front of the engine(that the rubber pipe connects to) whilst looking OK I could put a screwdriver through it, so also needs replacing, a hard to get at bolt holds this pipe in place, the other end of the metal pipe goes in the rear of the water pump, the area round this was also very rusted, chunks falling off in my fingers, but you need to remove the rust if replacing it so it does not enter the water system.

There's a pull out U clip that secures the bottom rad hose, though you may get away without draining the system if only doing the"top" pipe.

Allow a day/weekend to sort it, I did not get some sealer so am waiting till tomorrow.

Try drilling it out first, you've nothing to loose I drilled it out 1.5/2/2.5/3/3.2mm then put a flat blade screwdriver in to wind it out, though off the car(the old hose)
 
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I managed to buy a replacement bleed screw at the weekend and had a go at fixing it tonight. I drilled the broken screw out of the unit without removing it, going up in drill diameter until I was able to screw in the new part. Overall it took about 5-10 minutes. I took her out for a longish run and so far I haven't seen any leaking and the aircon was working again (after the system had repressurised).

Thanks for your advice, it helped a lot.
 
For future reference the thread for the air bleed screw is M6 1mm pitch.
 
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