Hey all,

On Saturday, I spent the day (and I mean the WHOLE day... 11 am to 11:30 pm) replacing the thermostat housing, which had been leaking since I bought the truck last September, all of the hoses (with the exception of the long ones going back to the rear heater core) and, obviously, flushing the fluid. There is really only one part of this process that I'd call "hard", and that's if you don't break down and remove the air intake plenum, and that is to replace the hose that has the plastic "bleeder T fitting" on it, from the rear side of the water pump to the small nipple just above the thermostat.

I thought I'd share how I accomplished this task, as someone may find it useful some day. In order to get the old hose off, I used some combination of long, bent-tip need nosed pliers and long bent tip vice grips to hold the clamp open, then wiggled the hose back with a screw driver until it just popped off. It really helps to have a second pair of hands here, but getting the old hose off was more about perseverance than ingenuity for me. (I also used a plastic syringe to remove the coolant from the top of the water pump, so that it didn't spill everywhere when the hose finally came off.)

I had a really handy friend working with me (or near me, on his own Jeep) at the time and we came up with a two-fold plan to get the new hose back on.

The first part was to reuse one of the U-shaped hose clamp "pre-loading clips", that came installed on some of the clamps with the OEM hose kit to compress the tabs on the clamp without having a big pair of pliers in the way when it came time to slip the new hose over the nipple. After the pre-loading clip was in place, I used a combination of bent-nose pliers and a magnet to place the clamp BEFORE putting the hose in place.

The second part was to tie two knots (that could later be undone with a small pick and a carefully placed mirror) around the throat of the hose. The photos below show how this looked before we got the hose in place. Without the shoulder on the hose, I have no idea how I'd have done this.

With the clamp "pre-loaded" and the ability to pull on the hose (and 4 hands), we were able to successfully get the new hose onto the nipple without removing the air intake plenum. When finished, I pried the pre-loading clip off and then repositioned the new hose clamp. Pics below:



Wax string tied around the "shoulder" of the old hose.

Wax string tied around the "shoulder" of the new hose.

The new hose in place.

Another view of the hose in place.


Success!

 

I would like to elaborate more on this specific hose that attaches to the block. I am amazed that you were able to replace it without taking the intake manifold down. If you can shed more pictures or how did you exactly remove the old clip out and snake the new hose in, that would be great. A few years back I have replaced all the hoses with the exception of this one pictured above. For the love of God, i did know how to approach or even see where is terminates, so I simply gave up. Cheers!

 

Hey Thorgal, I'll see if my friend has any better pictures of the process. I wish I had had a video camera to capture the whole process, because in the end I was pretty amazed that it worked, myself. Hopefully this is a little clearer. Feel free to ask any questions about individual steps if you want.

FOLLOW THESE STEPS AT YOUR OWN RISK, IN PARTICULAR ANY STEP THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH HOSE CLAMPS. THIS IS SIMPLY HOW I ACHIEVED THE ABOVE RESULTS.

Removal

(Luckily the old hose on my LR3 wasn't corroded and "stuck" onto the nipple. It moved fairly freely once I locked the clamp open with vice grips)

0. Cover all open holes with tape to prevent ingress of unwanted contaminates.
1. Put bent-nose vice grips on the old hose clamp to see if the hose would even move.
2. Use long flat screwdriver to slowly "pry" the old hose away from the nipple on the back of the block, underneath the intake manifold.
3. Realize that once I had pushed the hose about 1/4" off the nipple I was past the point of no return as I could ONLY remove the hose from now on. (I could NOT pull the old hose back onto the nipple once I had pushed it off even a little bit. The access is that bad).
4. Push the hose back little by little with a long, skinny screwdriver until it was fully removed, moving the vice grips/bent nose pliers back and forth to gain access to different portions of the hose.
5. Pull the hose out. (I'll admit I did not know if the hose was held captive underneath the intake manifold, had it been, I'd have been out of luck, but like I said in step 3, I had no choice but to continue removing the hose and figure it out)

Installation

1. Remove hose clamp from the NEW hose.
2. Fully compress the NEW hose clamp and find a piece of tube or pipe that just barely fits into the clamp when the clamp is fully open.
3. Place pre-load clip on the "arms" of the new hose clamp while it is fully open and clamped onto pipe. (You will need to use some needle nose pliers to compress it just a little bit more for this step)
4. LEAVE THE CLAMP ON THE PIPE UNTIL YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO TAKE IT OFF. A fully compressed hose clamp is a terrifying thing to hold.
5. Tie wax string so that it can be removed (technically a "cow hitch" or "lark's head knot") on opposite sides of the fat end of the hose. The waxiness of the string is important, as it helps the knot stay in place when you fish the hose back into place (but does make it more difficult to remove).
6. Place fully-compressed clamp onto nipple WITHOUT hose.
7. Fish hose into place, fat end first. (You can only get the hose back into place if you put it back in exactly how you pulled it out. Fortunately, this is possible). Try to keep your "left" and "right" string ends separate so you'll know which ends to pull in the next step.
8. Use screwdriver or whatever tool you can think of to push the end of the hose so that it aligns with the nipple.
9. Start pulling on the strings, attempting to keep them 180 degrees apart so your load is even. Be mindful of whether the hose is actually aligned with the nipple.
10. Because the clamp is already in place, and fully-compressed, you should be able to pull the hose and fully seat it, underneath the clamp with enough careful manipulation of the strings and the clamp.
11. Remove the strings (this is MUCH easier said than done, and will require an assortment of picks, tiny mirrors, flashlights and patience). JUST removing the strings took me an hour or more with a mirror, flashlight and something like 7 dental picks.
12. Twist off the clip that holds the clamp open and then use pliers to re-seat the clamp nicely.
13. Rejoice.


If I had ever removed the intake manifold before and new what it entailed, I'd have probably just done that, but I REALLY didn't want to run into another surprise that made it a 2 day job, so I was desperately trying to avoid doing that.

 

This is the post of the year for me...I am in the midst of doing this very project on my 2007 LR3 and for the life of me, I could not figure this hose out. I also am having an issue with getting the bolts back in. I am not sure what it's called, but the receiving piece that is metal and has teeth that allows it to stay in the plastic or metal housing no longer works and so when I am tightening the bolt, the whole thing moves and does not allow it to tighten. I am assuming there is no fix for this.

Thank you for sharing this. I look forward to putting you instructions to good use.

J

 

Thank you very much for a detailed response! it looks like this hose is attached to a piece of block, that holds a plastic thermostat housing.I don't think my hoses came with a pre load clips holding clams.I only have a Craftsman hose clamp spreading tool with spring loaded machanism and 2 feet long cable attached to both ends, latch and handle.I wonder if I can get that in and compress old hose clamp.

 

Great job and thanks for taking the time to post your notes. This is what makes all of these forums so great.

Just a side note - I have pulled the intake manifold once before for an unrelated task and it's really not that bad. Aside from new gaskets - it's a pretty straightforward job and probably would take a little bit less time than you had invested but you never know if anything will go sideways with any of these tasks, so I can appreciate the idea of removing the least amount of stuff as possible.

 

Julian, glad this post could help out a little bit. I'm assuming you're talking about the threaded threaded inserts on the intake manifold that are circled in yellow below? If so, it looks like a press-in or heat-set insert like the one at this McMaster-Carr link: https://www.mcmaster.com/94180A371/

You may just be able to find an insert that has a slightly larger outer diameter but the same thread pattern as the one on the intake manifold that is slipping. If it were me, I might try to repair the intake manifold in this manner before replacing the whole manifold, but I have experience using all kinds of threaded inserts, including heat set inserts, at work.

However, I wouldn't try to do this repair with the intake manifold ON the engine, so that renders my walk-through sort of pointless. Sorry about your luck with that part!

 

Thorgal, I think you've got it right. It terminates into the back of the horizontally-oriented flange that the thermostat housing bolts to (see photo). I also have a Craftsman hose clamp spreading tool, which I used for 90% of the hoses I replaced in during this job, but it simply won't fit into the small space you have to work in to remove that hose. For that reason, I used a pair of vice-grip needle nose pliers like these (https://www.grip-on.com/127b-long-nose-35o/) with a bent tip to release and manipulate this clamp.

 

AtlantaViking, I figured as much while I was in the middle of doing the job, but I really wanted to drive the LR3 home that night (did the job in parking lot at work). At the very least, I knew I'd have to replace the intake manifold gaskets if I removed it, which would have taken me a day or more to procure. That said, having now already gone through the trouble of figuring out how to do this job without removing the intake manifold, were I to do it again, I'd do it like this. Cheers!