I had an ambitious repair agenda planned for this weekend: New radiator, upper/lower hoses, belts, both oil filter housing gaskets, and yes, the accursed oil cooler hoses.

I want to begin by saying that after 12 hours over two days of working on this car, outside in 40 degree weather with the wind blowin', I'm ready to beat the brakes off of the Kraut that conceived of this oil cooler hose routing nightmare. There are sooo many ways these could have been engineered to make repairs easy.

But it had to be done... when I removed the lower line from the oil cooler the hose itself turned and slipped about 1/4 inch out of the ferrule. I'm guessing I was within a few hundred miles of catastrophic failure.

Now I'm off to a reputed hose fab shop this a.m. and I'm going to have something put together that's similar to a solution posted by whunter:

Inexpensive Oil Cooler Solution

I'll report back later with my results of the search for the One Ring, er... cooler hoses.

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1991 300D 2.5 "Rocinante"
2002 Golf TDI "Teen Spirit"
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1984 300D
1966 Mustang I6 3sp
1985 Mazda RX-7 GSLSE
1982 Toyota Supra
1977 Datsun 280z
1971 Datsun 240z

I love it! When I first read the trilogy over 40 years ago, the Balrog was the character that got under my skin the most... Which is why I in fact paid a professional to do mine last year...

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Mine: 1987 MB 420 SEL - 62K (Dec 2019)
Mine:1991 MB 350SDL - 244K (Aug 2011)- Totalled 9/14/2016
Mine:1981 MB 300SD - 326K mi (July 1997)-sold
Wife's: 2008 MB C300 Sport - 92K mi (April 2009)

PO of my $500 SD installed a NEW MBZ radiator that doesn't leave room for the oil cooler. He cut the lines & connected them with a male insert and cheap worm gear hose clamps. The hoses are routed dangerously close to the AC compressor. He claims to be a foreign car specialist and have experience building transmissions. A perfect example of why POs are hated.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.