Freelander 1 Oil Cooler

All was going well. Looked like an easy job

Until I got to the (already, I might add!) rounded off 13 mm starter motor bolt

Managed to get the only 1/2" spanner I have on it but its an open ender so didnt work.

Bugger

Now trying without taking starter off. Have a 40 torx that might work but it seems like those bits have 1/4" allen key ends and i have no imperial spanners and cant get socket on it

Here we go

Will try with adjustables.
Other two oil cooler bolts werent overtight (not surprising as oil cooler is ally)

Nope

Modifying open ended 6 mm spanner to be 1/4" with file

That broke

Cut off remains of open end of 6mm spanner and vice pressed ring end onto 40 mm Torx bit
Then unserted a 10 mm long socket plus extension over end of cut off spanner and used large flat screwdriver between end of torx bit and starter to avoid rounding off torx bolt via bit coming out of bolt

Ta-da!

The mating face of the cooler is a bit corroded with raised 'frosting' and I reckon this has allowed oil through to the water channel via the gasket (But this must mean that oil pressure here is higher than water pressure as there was no water in oil, only loads of oil in water - I would have expected water pressure to be higher)

But, since I have both gaskets I will push on and take the oil filter/cooler adapter off of block and replace that gasket too (although I also am tempted to leave well alone ....)

Let's see how that goes

Without the rounded off top starter motor bolt, it would have been a sinch

One thing I did see was that the inlet 'ports' behind the manifold, and manifold are very crudded up with softish crumbly oily desposit - so that's why it smokes on startup. I will see if I clean them out or not (Car was working before). Is this due to EGR valve?

These are the crudded inlet ports (what are they called?)

And my Safari setup

Yes oil pressure should be several times the water pressure.

pwood999 said:

Yes oil pressure should be several times the water pressure.

Click to expand...

Thanks @pwood999!

Adapter on left, cooler on right. I reckon it was the cooler gasket as cooler face is s bit corroded, but glad I took both off

Now to work out how to clean all the gloopy thick oil out of the water system without Amaco Cadiz-ing my garden
Once I get the worst of it out I will put LIDL dishwasher tabs in to clean it out, but its the initial clean out that I'm not sure about.
If I was over a proper oil and residue drain I'd just hose it out, I think, but in the garden?
Any ideas, please?

Easiest way is to do multiple flushes with proper engine flush fluid. Fill the system with water & flush agent & run and warm up the engine at high & low revs a few times. Then drain & repeat. That will get most of the crud out.

The diagram on this thread shows the pairs of pipes with flow direction (simple google search for "TD4 cooling system diagram" also finds it ! ).

alternatively, make a couple of garden hose adapters, and then put one end in a large bucket/barrel/etc & squirt cleant water in the other hose. Do them in pairs, or work out an entry & exit point to the system & flush that way.

Done!
This was the oil glop that came out of just the expansion bottle (there was more than this in the bottom hose when I first took it off!):


NB Most of below from advice of the amazing Nuno Sousa of LandFree garage - he only does Freelanders
I found out yesterday that he actually speaks very good English, so if you get stuck in Portugal, he is the man

- First, I remounted everything to keep water out of oil during flushing

- Then I filled with water plus one normal blue ball dose of clothes washing liquid and ran for half an hour to warm car, followed by three times with some revs

- Then oil migrated to expansion bottle

- Then I let car cool down

- Then I added water to expansion bottle slowly to decant off oil

- Then I put the hose into the expansion bottle to flush more out and cleaned bottle with bottle brush

- Then I added another blue ball of washing liquid and more water to level

- Then ran for half hour, allowed to cool and decanted and flushed and cleaned bottle

- Then did the whole thing again (3rd time)

- Then I took off bottom hose to drain mucky water and inserted hose in metal and then rubber bottom hoses and flushed out

- Then put on bottom hose and refilled and started again

- Did all above 4 times

- Then refilled with clean water

- Then I put fullish inverted 1.5 litre drinking bottle of water into open expansion bottle and ran for half an hour to get remaining bits out




- Then I drained again via bottom hose, and refilled with water and ran to the supermarket and back (about 6 mile round trip) to buy coolant

- When I got back it was a bit oily in the expansion bottle again so I decanted and then flushed, and drained via bottom hose

- Then I put in the coolant (Redex on offer). It only took just under 5l (should be 7.25) so must have been some water somewhere still inside (I forgot to run car with bottom hose off for a very short time).

- Now the coolant just has a tiny bit of oil in the expansion bottle, so I will today run with an inverted water bottle of coolant in the expansion bottle for some time

- Then after a few days / week (or when / if more oil appears in exp bottle) I will change coolant


Seems to run fine - better than before in fact with inlet manifold not half blocked and temp goes to halfway and stays there, thermostat appears to work (also, jet of water in expansion bottle starts only after warming and I have been told that thermostat fails open)


Fingers crossed!