I got stranded by a burst water pipe the other day and when one goes, they tend to all start going so I opted to replace them all to save being stuck at the side of the M4 again at 8AM.
Incidentally it's £7 a month to be a member of the AA... Worth every bean!
First off, here's my culprit, my bottom rad hose had "ballooned out" causing it to touch the fan belt wheel which cut a long slit in it. This particular hose runs really close the the wheel so it doesn't take much expansion for this to happen.
The cooing system is made up of TEN pipes as below, these are layed out on my living room floor, only slightly useful I know but they are laid out roughly as they appear in the car.
There are:
- Three really big obvious ones that connect to the radiator top, radiator bottom and a loopback round thermostat.
- Three long ones that link the water-pump with the intake for the car heater and the bottom of the header tank. These all join together with a three way splitter underneath the engine, you can't see where they join by looking alone, try to follow the pipe down with your hands and you'll feel it.
- Two shorter ones that link the back of the engine and the heater control valve
- One overflow pipe from the top of the header tank
- One bleed hose from the header tank to the radiator
I also opted to change the thermostat and the o-ring as well since previous experiance taught me I'd probably need to take the housing off to get at some of the pipes which would in turn probably wreck the ring and since it would then be off.. I might as well change the thermostat. As you can see below my prophecy was true..
I also replaced the four bolts that hold the thermostat in since they were rusty looking and I can see one of them snapping off when I put it back together and I finally ordered a new flywheel sensor cable (the thing that's taped up in the background).
Things to look out for:
Don't confuse oil pipes with waterpipes! The 635 has a separate oil radiator about 6 inches high that sits in front of the water radiator at the bottom. You can't see it unless you're underneath the car.
If the pipe you're looking at isn't secured with a jubilee clip and looks a bit more "hardcore" than a rubbery water pipe.. it probably isn't.
So all in all a grand job.
check out bmwfans.info for the cooling diagrams..
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