There's been a fair bit of discussion on the forum recently (again!) about leaking oil cooler pipes and the various options, including OEM replacement, the new Forge kit and the JHM pipe upgrade kit. For various reasons I've gone for the JHM option, and I thought it might be useful for those contemplating the repair if I did a post explaining the procedure from an amateur DIYer's point of view. I realise that for those who've done it themselves before it's not going to be of much interest, but for novices like me I hope it might be of some use. (Tap/click on the pics to enlarge them).
I started by jacking up the car, supporting it on axle stands and and removing the wheels. I then removed a number of screws that attach the undertray to the arch liners, including the 3 in each arch that fix the air duct on the undertray to the liner. Removal of the bumper is a bit fiddly, but there's a useful guide here: (
http://www.euroaddiction.net/forum/b7-a ... moval.html) As there's quite a number of bolts, screws and nuts I got a piece of corrugated cardboard and pushed all the fixings into it in a numbered sequence and wrote next to them where they'd come from. Bit OCD maybe but saves frustration when you're refitting.
I was expecting the nuts attaching the pipes to the cooler to be corroded so decided to undo the pipes from the engine first and remove the cooler with them attached, so I could get it all on the bench and see if I could undo the nuts without damaging the outlets on the cooler.
I started by undoing the 'P' clip that holds one of the pipes to the top of the oil cooler. The oil cooler is behind the power steering cooler which is attached to it by brackets with 4 nuts (2 on top and 2 below). The lower ones were rusty on mine and as they're mounted on rubber 'bobbins' for damping they were a bit tricky to remove; I used Plus Gas and they came off OK. You may have to carefully grip the bobbin with pliers to do this.
Once you've pulled it free of the oil cooler it's important to suspend the PS cooler to avoid putting strain on the unions; I tied mine to the steel crossmember in front of the rads.
The 2 pipes are attached to the block on the o/s of the engine. Once the screws are removed, carefully pull the pipes out of the housing and have an oil drain container, oil tray or similar on the floor to catch the oil. You don't have to drain the sump. I left the pipes to drain down for a while, then undid the 2 nuts holding the oil cooler on to brackets – there's one to either side behind a plastic shroud. Carefully pull the cooler forward and down slightly so it disengages from the studs, then pull the pipes through the rubber grommet in the housing behind the L/H air duct and remove the cooler complete with the pipes.
I was quite surprised how rusty the couplings on the pipes are as they didn't look too bad when the cooler was in place. All of them are badly corroded and one has a split (and they've only been on just over 3 years). I don't think it would have been long before the split one let go and either leaked seriously or detached itself from the pipe. Quite scary!
I put the cooler in the vice and spent about half an hour with a Dremel-type tool (mine's a cheaper version from Machine Mart) carefully cutting through one of the nuts attaching the pipe to the cooler, stopping frequently to see if I could see the threads so as not to damage them.
I then used a small steel chisel to prise the nut open a little. I was able to undo the nut easily, but my sense of achievement was short lived as the threads on the cooler outlet were quiet badly corroded and the cone inside was also in poor shape.
I just wasn't prepared to risk re-using the cooler, so had to bite the bullet and get a new one (£590 from Aberdeen Audi; £36 cheaper than my discounted local main dealer price).
I did a trial fit of the new hoses this morning, but that's as far as I've got as work and other priorities are taking up weekends and, as the car is not used much in winter, there's no mad rush to get to finished. But I'll post an update when I complete the upgrade in a week or two and let you know how I get on.
