Replacing Oil Cooler Flexi Pipes on 1973 Stag.

[Stevev]

Hi all,

After a lot of work at the weekend I eventually got round to replacing the Jack shaft and water pump that failed almost a year ago now.

Good news was the car fired up and run OK except that it looks like the two Flexi Pipes that connect the Oil cooler pipework to the pipework on the Auto box appear to have perished whilst the car had stood idle for the last year.

So question is what is the easiest way to change them? So far I have received the new ones and jacked the car up only to find that there is just no space to work.

Any tips welcome. I reckon that removing the exhaust might help but even thats a major job just to swap two Flexi Pipes.

Cheers

Steve

[Arbman Al]

imported post

Bump for you.

Sorry I don't know, but got you back to the top!

Al

[Stevev]

imported post

I gave give many tips after this little exercise. lol

Pipes an absolute pig to get at, made worst by the fact that when fitted (original pipes) I think popeye did up 3 of the 3 connections. :X

So where to start. I cut the flexi pipes in half with a Stanley knife, this meant I could remove the pipes connected to the oil cooler and withdraw them from the car.

Once out I totally stripped them back to bear metal and cleaned them up and also managed to get the two flexi pipe connections apart, eventually.

I then turned to the remaining flexi pipes connected to the pipes on the BW35 box. Impossible to get to and way to tight so decided to take the metal pipes off the gearbox, actually not that hard. Again once out I separated the old flexi pipes and cleaned all the metal pipes back up.

Assemble, now started the fun bit as you guessed it, you cant assemble the whole thing and connect all the flexi pipes whilst out the car, BUT you can assemble the oil cooler pipes to one end ogf the flexi pipes and then fit them back in the car.

At this point the plan was to connect the auto box pipes to the flexi pipe and then connect to the gearbox, yer right ROFLOL.

Impossible to get the pipes connected back to the box as the new flexi pipes just were too tough to allow you to manoeuvre them into place and connect up.

Off came the Filler tube and dipstick, and oil drained, this gives the necessary access to get the pipes back on the box and to slacken the end of the flexi pipe to position correctly. Now if I had known this to start I would have taken the filler tube off earlier as it gives a lot more access.

Both pipes now replaced and Auto box filled back up with correct fluid (albeit Commer as thats all I could find in my local stockists).

I don't suppose that 36 years is too bad for the pipes to last but that did have the original alloy bands round them with the date on of September 1973. So I guess I wont need to change them again.



Steve