Got time to do a bit on the car the last few evenings. To summarise, the turbo pipework has been a real PAIN and is seized in the old turbos and wont come out. I have tried heat, persuasion, more heat, brute force etc and they dont seem to want to come out. The main issue I have found is that the pipes simply dont have the strength to get good leverage behind the fittings so it is very hard to exert enough force on them. So to that end I have cut a couple to get to the pipes behind them, and could free none of them on bank 2 side so I am cutting my losses and just replacing them all with new..
The parts list has grown a bit more.
I am also replacing both turbo drain tanks as I got a good deal on a pair so it made sense as the old ones have seen better days and then it will all be new.
Oil lines, the long one at the bottom front of the engine, I tried to undo one union where it attaches on bank one side to the cam housing area, but although the nut unwound it is seized to the actual oil pipe :floor: so I am going to cut both ends of the pipe with a dremel and cutter near the nut, and of course renew that pipe as it was manky anyway.
Oil line arrowed in red in the image below
On to the next battle, the front water manifold. So firstly I removed the coolant manifold on the top of the engine, which gave access to the water pipes to the front main manifold. Then the fun started. Although there was no sign of any leaks from the coolant outlets or pipes (because they were on so damn tight..!) I wanted to be careful removing the pipes so as not to gash or damage the outlets from the manifold.
Engine carrier and exhaust bracket removed, hmmm.... cant see any more fittings, more checks, levered the manifold gently to see if there was any movement.... a little.
So after a good few hours battling I ended up removing the elbows from the casings (that should 'just' be attached to the manifold with the oring coupler (with protector sleeve) and then with some serious persuasion with a rubber hammer, I managed to eek one elbow off and then extract the water manifold with the other one still seemingly welded on!!
The pictures below tell the story, not necessarily in the correct order Im afraid.
Suffice to say, I got access to the guide bolt I am sorting and found the cause of the displaced rubber cover to one of the coolant elbows... The rubber protector sleeve seems to have been damaged on installation (could only see it when the manifold was coming out as it was hidden) is the only thing I can assume, unless a small leak and the ensuing buildup of gunk made it bulge and let further badness in.
Anyway, Im glad I caught that as on a factory new car they may be easy to get off, in fact you can probably change the elbows to the block with the engine in place (maybe...) but not a 1% chance could it be done on this one!
So, will be cleaning everything up next stage, prepping the coolant manifold and resealing the (perfectly rock solid) coolant outlets!! and adding parts to the parts buying list.
Next job is a pleasant one, removing inlet manifold and all the other non rusty parts at the top of the engine. I have nearly cracked the worst of the old bits (got to cut the bolt off one turbo support still then cut the pipes and remove the turbos.) and after a mega clean up it will be parts list time.
I may well end up removing the gearbox to replace the large oil pipe that comes down from the secondary oil cooler to the block, hopefully it will come out without me needing to do that. But I will wait until the new parts have arrived to do that as it is one less oil inlet to protect.
Cheers