Coolant line

[Prospeeder]

If this a common thing? My TGPs Coolant line, the big long metal one from the water pump, snaking around the engine bay to the back onto the firewall to the heater core inlet burst from rust at its lowest point spewing out all my coolant, and a new line is 65$. is this pretty common? And removal looks fairly straight forward, minus the fact the main wireing harness is in the WAY so any tips on getting this thing out of the engine bay would be great! Im having a bitch of a time getting the clamp off the firewall hose, its like a worm gear, and i cant get a ratchet on it. Its obivously been replaced before, the clamps are nice shiny worm gear clamps, and the cars at the yard all have gross looking clamps that you use pliers to remove. So ya, this sucks, i had 500 in the bank too, just a few hundred more and my Front fascia, valence, and quarter flares would be color matched and painted.

[twinturbosedan]

it's easy to replace.  mine rusted out in the same spot.  i think the wiring harness plug is a T-30 Torx.  my line was about $50 from the local GM dealer.

btw, i had to cut an inch or two off waterpump end because it's just a bit too long for a TGP (TGP sticks out more for the coolant tee to supply turbo).  hard to explain but you'll see what i mean when you install it.

[GutlessSupreme]

Cutlass one rusted out, STE one had holes after I sandblasted it because it was so thin.

On the Cutlass I just cut out the whole bottom-most portion, grinded off any other small rust spots, repainted it and ran heater hose along the bottom part.. It's still leaking a little bit.. I need to check all the clamps again. Only the spot where the rear-bottom-mount had a hole, but it was apparent that the front one was going to go soon too so I just cut the whole section out. Rust builds big time around those welds because of the way the supports are wrapped under the pipe so they just hold water there.

I plan on the same fix for the STE.

btw, i had to cut an inch or two off waterpump end because it's just a bit too long for a TGP (TGP sticks out more for the coolant tee to supply turbo).  hard to explain but you'll see what i mean when you install it.

That "T' being the pipe that runs down the side of the block? That's not turbo specific, I don't think. Any car with an oil cooler should have that. I wonder if there's another pipe floating around.

[twinturbosedan]

That "T' being the pipe that runs down the side of the block? That's not turbo specific, I don't think. Any car with an oil cooler should have that. I wonder if there's another pipe floating around.

yes that's the 'T'.  the rubber section on the end of the heater core line has to be shorter to fit with the 'T" being there.

i'm pretty sure the water-to-oil cooler is TGP specific.  i've never seen it on anything else anyway.  other W-bodies with oil coolers have a regular air-to-oil cooler mounted behind the grill.

[GutlessSupreme]

Seriously? I thought they were all water-to-oil

[Prospeeder]

fixed, new one was 68$ and it was such a bitch to get the worm gear off the heater core. i had to rock the motor forward and it made it easy. nice and shiny black now, jeese my old one it actually broke in half!