Hi,

Just wanted to say thanks to all the people posting wisdom here. I read about changing my leaky oil lines for 2 hrs and it made the job an easy 4 hr job including time fabricating a fitting wrench. I'll break the job down here highlighting the best tips.

Hr 1: took off all brackets holding hoses to block and ac pump. Took off 8mm engine mount bolt under engine mount. Took 10mm nut off bottom of engine shock. Gear wrench was a major time saver on this. 10mm for engine shock 12mm on line bracket.

Hr2: make flare nut wrench from $10 auto zone 1 1/16" combination wrench. This took one hour due to cracked harbor fright tools air hose on my cutoff wheel. Hadn't used air tools in awhile. As I cut with my under powered compressor I thought I should have just bought the thirty dollar wrench from a website. But I wanted to justify my harbor fright $10 air tool collection. No, they aren't ir tool, but it sure beat a hacksaw.

Hr3: cut nuts on oil cooler side with dremel to avoid stripping nipple. I almost cut too far. Good tip, they were frozen and liquid wrench did nothing even applied several times last weekend. Undid fittings on filter side with new wrench. Worked well. Spent 20 min per hose tho felt like hour teasing them out from under the mount. For fun I thought I wouldn't Jack up the engine even tho I freed the mount. Yes, you can get them out on a 300sd w/o jacking the engine off the mount. Didn't loosen ac either. Doing both would have clearly helped. I am a patient puzzle solver type - if you rush this and pull too thoughtlessly you can really get in a bind. Hoses out in 40 min.

Hr4: realizing I had my fun I jacked up the loosened engine. It was so easy to pull the 8 mm bolt and engine shock you wonder why people avoid it - like me. You don't have to pull the whole mount, just get the silver leg up 1" so you can slip your new lines underneath, unless you want to change the mount. The engine shock needs to come out but all that is left at this point are two 10mm bolts on top. Jacked up engine, slipped hoses under, tightened fittings and installed brackets. Ez.

Hr5: cleanup macondo disaster area...it rained halfway thru job.

Yep, loosening the ac would have helped before the engine jacking. It was really clear how 1mm more between the pump and engine would have made it easier. But really lifting the engine save more time than it takes. The whole deal is you want an ez way to slip the lines under the mount arm.

Like always thankful to have dozens giving advice here. I now know why all my pre Internet project cars failed, I was working alone.

Good luck and don't be afraid of those hoses (126 chassis at least). Just spend some time reading here before diving in.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Nice write up.

If while you were cutting through the Nuts with the Dremel Tool you had gone to far and nicked the threads it would not hurt anything because the Oil Cooler Hoses do not seal on their threaded area.
The Hose ends seal in the internal taper of the Nipple and the sort of rounded male portion of the Hose end. Some what like the Fuel Injection Hard Lines seal in the Injectors.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Welcome to the club, its actually a fun job considering the "sense of accomplishment" aspect. As I was told from members on this forum, its like a rite of passage.

Hi 911,

No I cut past the threads and nicked the leading edge of the inner conical taper. Doh! I'm hoping the seal is made a little further down the taper. I got too excited with the cutter.

Btw good hearing your line fix is still holding. Makes sense, there's no magic here.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

If it does happen to leak all is not lost.

The both the taper on the Nipple and the conical part of the Hose could be degreased with Brake Cleaner and a light coating of non-hardening Permatex (the old Brown stuff in the tube) or ever Silicon Sealant (if done carefully) could be put on. Ounce it is tightened let it cure several hours and it should be good to go.

The other way I have fixed similar things is to get some Grease to stick a Copper Crush Washer to the part and install the Hose.
In fact a paper Gasket between the Nipple and the Hose might even work.

No matter what you do you do not have to worry about anything getting into you Engine because the Oil Cooler system is all un-filtered Oil. It has to go back to the Filter Housing before it gets filtered.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

I thought it was a done deal after fixing my hoses. I check my oil often and noticed two weeks after the hose swap I had lost two quarts. I thought oh no, the cooler lines sprung a leak. Looked under the hood and things looked okay. Fittings seemed dry.

I topped off and made a cross town trip and when I got back I was a quart down. It rained and the drivers side had a haze on the paint like diesel oil!

Once again looked under the hood and it looked okay.

Jacked up the car and saw that the entire bottom side on the drivers side was greasey. Oh no. Wasn't like that last week when I changed hoses. Saw a little drip coming off the lower cooler fitting. The drip was at six o'clock and you couldn't see it from above. Fired up the engine and it had about one drip per second. That is a lot. Somehow the oil got in the slip stream and never slathered up the engine bay. Btw this wasn't the fitting I notched up with the Dremel.

I tightened the fitting and it was tight. Still leaked. I loosened it up, gave it a shake to reseat it and tightened. No leak.

Last tip: keep an eye on those hoses afer you change them.

This could have been or already is a disaster. As we all know it takes two quarts to get you from add to full on the dipstick of the 617 but heck I feel awful. When I get the courage I'll dust off my compression tester. I never seemed to lose oil pressure.

Awww. Why why why why!!!????? Because I am an idiot.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles