I wish I had known about this issue when I got the car - I would have sprayed the steel coolant pipes to protect them. 80k miles further down the road, my JTD is leaking coolant from the now corroded steel pipes that run down the front of the engine to the oil cooler/heat exchanger. Replacement was now the only option.
Unfortunately, it seems to be a dealer only part (please correct if wrong) and the ePer part number is: 46788464. Current price £95.92 ex vat
The original has lasted 150k miles though!
Here's how I did it - by no means 'correctly' but it works now.........
All photos taken from the front of the car (where applicable).
First of all, I sprayed the new part with some stove paint I had kicking around. Take care to mask up the rubber hoses that come with the part (in the picture I've unwrapped one of the hoses).
Unfortunately, it seems to be a dealer only part (please correct if wrong) and the ePer part number is: 46788464. Current price £95.92 ex vat
The original has lasted 150k miles though!Here's how I did it - by no means 'correctly' but it works now.........
All photos taken from the front of the car (where applicable).
First of all, I sprayed the new part with some stove paint I had kicking around. Take care to mask up the rubber hoses that come with the part (in the picture I've unwrapped one of the hoses).
Removal!
I started by undoing the nut (green arrow). This was possibly a mistake - I should have started with the flex pipes at the oil cooler and let the coolant drain from there. Anyhow, the nut (green arrow) was badly rusted onto the engine coolant pipe fitting which started turning (red arrow) and the coolant pipe split, so I hacksawed it off (blue arrow).
This is what I was left with, which I soaked in penetrating fluid, but I still couldn't separate them (more later):
More removal
Next I removed the flexi pipes from the oil cooler (the step I should have done first!!). Position a container underneath - coolant WILL spill out. Undo the fiat clips. There is a Stilo guide for this if required (I'm not allowed to post links yet....)
Now for the other top pipe:
undo the bolt (green arrow). The blue arrow shows the location of the next/final clip you need to remove. Again, it's a pesky fiat clip!
getting in to remove the clip is no easy task, but a bit of patience here:
and here's the tool I used:
The flex pipe here must stay in position and the metal pipe comes off. I positioned the metal pipe so it could be levered off. The green arrow is the 'pivot point'. The blue arrow is the direction of my 'gentle' force, and the red arrow is the resultant movement:
Refitting
I ended up taking the rusted nut to a local tyre fitter who successfully 'released' it with a heavy hammer :worship:. I cleaned up the inside surface of the fitting:
and refitted:
Refitting
Put the new part in place. First, gently persuade the rubber pipes onto the oil cooler. DON'T FORGET THE CLIPS!!. I used some pipe grips as my 'persuasion tool' (red arrow) but the last thing you need to to break the potentially fragile oil cooler inlet and outlet pipes so be careful.....
Refit the fiat clips on the oil cooler (also on the Stilo guide). Now refit the top right flex pipe. I gave up with the fiat clip on this one and used a jubilee clip instead:
Finally do up the top left bolt (the one which I have spent so much time with on this project....) and it's time to refill/bleed the coolant.
