BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Spanner mate Peter brought his newly acquired Daimler 1998 round yesterday. We had a list of jobs to do and we thought we might have time to replace the brake booster on my Alfa Spider, too. In the end, we completed only two jobs on the Daimler. This day will live in our memories as the day of the “battle with the elbow hose”! No quarters were given and victory was ours in the end as you will see The first job went pretty well. The Daimler has one central wiper. The window washer nozzles are attached to the wiper itself. So there is a little hose that runs from the parafan onto the wiper arm. At some point in time the little nozzle sitting on the parrafan must have broken off and they sort of glued it back together. But a bit of a botch job. In the Netherlands, having a proper working window washer system is a mandatory requirement for passing the MOT or APK as it is known here. As part of the deal on the Daimler, Peter got a new APK done as well, so this had to work. And it did, but it looked ugly and was already leaking. So we took the paraffin off, 4-5 bolts, and you need to remove the wiper arm. Next, we probably spend half an hour removing all kinds of leaves and debris from the cabin intake vents underneath the paraffin. It had clearly not been cleaned for a very long time. We pulled out complete bird nests! Peter had managed to source a new nozzle, but that meant we had to get the badly glued old one out first. I decided to take my Dremel to it and mill away most of the glue. Which went surprisingly well. We fitted the new nozzle with a rubber ring. Fitted everything back to the Daimler and tested it. All works fine once again. Replacing The Cooling System HoseThe next job was to replace a hose in the cooling system. Peter had noticed that one of the hoses would swell up with the engine running and at normal operating temperature. With the engine turned off and cooled down, nothing abnormal was to be seen. But that hose was definitely on its last legs. Peter is checking underneath the front of the Daimler to find the coolant drain plug. We found the drain plug. But as so often with drain plugs on radiators, it was made of plastic. When you start to turn a plastic drain plug that has most likely never been removed since 1998, it’s 99.99% certain it will break! So we decided on a different approach. We just loosened one of the hoses where we thought the coolant would simply run down in front of the engine-stuffed a plastic bag in front of the (electric) coolant fans. I had put two trays underneath the engine to catch the coolant. Not much came out, about one litre or so. When working on coolant hoses, it helps to have the correct tools. The proper pliers to undo hose clamps. This nifty tool helps you break loose stuck hoses. The hose that needed replacing sat at the front of the engine/supercharger. Taking it off was a 5 -5-minute job! Here a close-up of where it was sitting. Peter had bought two new ones. An original Jaguar one and an aftermarket. It looks deceptive, but these three hoses are just about identical in size. Including the first little job we had been busy for about an hour or so, so were optimistic in getting all the other jobs on the Daimler and Spider done. However, as it turned out, putting this new elbow hose back on proved to be quite the challenge. It was a very tight fit, with very poor access. We removed a few other hoses to get some better access. We broke one of the bleed lines in the process. These engines have 4-5 bleed lines. From various ‘high’ points in the coolant system feeding to the coolant reservoir. Over time, they become very brittle. The one we tried to remove snapped in four separate pieces before we managed to remove it completely. Luckily, there is an SNG Barratt parts store in nearby Den Bosch. We called them and they had a spare bleed line for us. So we jumped in the car drove over, drove back again We tried for ours, fitting this blasted little elbow hose back on. Tried every trick in the book we knew, and invented various other tricks. But not avail. At one point I decided to call my Jaguar Specialist friend Raymond. He confirmed that this particular hose is always a struggle. I checked with him, what else we could remove. We had been considering unbolting the complete hose/pump assembly at the front. But Raymond said that would make things worse, because it means undoing a few other hoses with even poorer access. So we battled on. In the end, we managed to slip it back on and get the hose clamps back on and properly attached! We installed our new bleed line, only to discover it wasn’t properly installed in the first place. It looks it had snapped before, and they made the connection with a hose and a hose clamp. We checked my engine on my Jaguar, it is identical to Daimler’s. Surprisingly, mine had the same odd coupling here. It took us 10-15 minute to clear out the original connector. The mating part on the bleed line must have snapped off, hence the modification. I pried out a lot of plastic bits and the two o-rings that are parts of an original coupling. Here’s how it should look: the coolant reservoir with multiple bleed lines attached. Next, we topped up the coolant. On these cars with a supercharger, there is quite an elaborate procedure to top up and bleed the system. Topping up and initial bleeding is done through a special filler opening on top of the supercharger. Part of the bleeding procedure calls for turning the ignition on, but not starting the engine. With the ignition on, the electric supercharger pump will start circulating coolant through the system. Next, you switch it off for a minute, top up again, and run the supercharger coolant pump for another two minutes. Top up and start the engine. Torquing up the plug on the supercharger to 45 Nm before finally starting the engine. Next, Peter started up the engine, we checked for any leaks, everything looked ok. Peter took it out for a short drive to warm up the engine, so the thermostat opens and also the various heater controls open up, and all air is bled from the various coolant components. He was back in ten minutes. We checked the coolant reservoir, and the coolant level had dropped a tiny bit. And I noticed one of the hoses had a tiny bit of coolant. Reset the hose and retighten the hose clamp. Got it sorted. Peter and I have been working together on cars for more than thirty years. And in all those years, all those different cars and jobs, we could only once not finish it ourselves. (Remember that episode where we could not get the drive shaft installed on my Mini!). We always manage to get everything back together. Admittedly, sometimes a few parts are left over, but that has never caused any issues. We like to think of it as modifications. This job once again demonstrates that even simple jobs, such as replacing a hose, can take a long, long time. We will plan another day to finish up the other jobs on the Daimler and the Spider. More to come. JeroenCheck out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
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Carrying out DIY work on my friend's 1998 Diamler
