Decided to take advantage of the sunshine this afternoon to try to get something done without me having to leave my property. Garage clear out is now on hold as we obviously can't get any rubbish cleared out to the tip.
Today's target was the thoroughly blocked "atmospheric coolant catch tank" - seriously Jag, it's an expansion tank - on the Jag. I'd like to get rid of the bottle currently wedged between hoses in the nearside front of the engine bay.
Access is gained by removing five 10mm (I expected them to be imperial sized!) Bolts and pulling the wheel arch liner out.
First contact with the enemy.
Immediately obvious is that the overflow bung has escaped the side of the tank.
The idea of this setup is that if this tank were to overflow any water or steam would exit via that metal pipe you can see to the left. However if the seal between the tank and that pipe is compromised (which it is basically from day one as they never fitted well) this will simply escape into the wing.
Made worse by them sticking a foam pad underneath it to hold onto the moisture for as long as possible!
The tank originally would have been a friction fit between two brackets however these were missing so once I fed the pipe through from the engine bay it was just lifted out.
This left behind a lot of crusty mess.
Quite how much crud was apparent once it was swept out. Hey, there's the remains of the bracket that should have been holding the tank!
The results of this were honestly predictable.
On the plus side, the outer wing just bolts on so access should be fine to carry out a repair. I could be naughty and bolt the liner back in and pretend not to have seen it as the MOT tester would never know... I'd rather properly fix it though. Even bearing in mind that I'll need to chase it back a ways to find solid metal it shouldn't be the worst repair to do. Especially as it's out of sight so my horrible welding won't be visible.
I had a bit of a peer into the void using my phone camera and the inner will looks fine. Couple of bits of surface rust but nothing terrifying.
It looks like the tank itself was replaced in the early 90s judging from the date of 1991 on a sticker on it.
Given the line was completely clogged I was surprised to find that it did have some water in...well...something vaguely resembling liquid which may at some point have been water anyway.
This smelled precisely like you'd expect for 30 year old Barr's Stop Leak or K-Seal...lovely! Given that Jag used to recommend adding two bottles of the stuff at each coolant flush, not surprising to find this. There was about an inch of compacted mud at the bottom of the bottle under about 1/2 a pint of water.
Trying to clear the pipe took way longer than getting everything out. The culprit was unsurprisingly the narrowest point in the system, the coupler between the two pipes.
That was choked solid end to end. I had to resort to drilling the gunk out of it as it had the consistency of concrete. Again, I reckon age old leak stop compounds are probably to blame. Removing the hoses (once I eventually managed to get the hose clips free) required them to be cut and then peeled off with a pair of pliers as they were utterly welded onto it.
The whole lot is now soaking in the sink in the utility room, probably awaiting a run through the dishwasher tomorrow before being refitted.
The bung on the overflow will probably be sealed to the body using Sikaflex to hopefully make it something resembling water tight. Hopefully the system will be less troublesome going forward given that cooling system sealant potions won't be going anywhere near the car.
I will need to figure out some means to secure it though as the bracketry has long since dissolved too.
Welding the wing up will need to wait a bit as I'll need a bunch of supplies first which I obviously can't get out for just now.
In summary: It's been said a thousand times before by pretty much every owner of an XJ-S ever...what a stupid design!