The law according to sod

Dear old Gothilda has sprung a major coolant leak. Its ok though, I've pinpointed it, its in a short piece of hose that has simply perished with age.

Is this hose one of the nice big ones right at the front of the enormous engine bay, one of the very easily accessible ones? No.

Is this hose at least one that is removed without having to removing anything else? No.

To get to the jubilee clips on this perished hose in order to remove it, I've had to take off chunks off the actual engine. That gives me access to one end. The other end is slightly more accessible, but only with the exact correct spanner. A 6mm ring spanner. Do I have a 6mm ring spanner? No.

 

I have loads of those spanners, my husband was a mechanic in his youth, I have things to do things, imperial and metric, I have no idea of. I did suggest to my stepson I would give them to somebody asking on free cycle but he wants them, 2 years later still in my shed.

 

I sometimes think they do this on purpose so that people will take their car to a garage for repairs.

 

That's the case on more modern cars, but in the case of Gothilda, a 17 year old Volvo, its just a case of pure bad luck. If the jubilee clip in question had been rotated ever so slightly up over, I'd have been able to get it with a flat blade screwdriver.

 

She seems to be fixed now. All that remains is to get some new coolant (I tested the fix with water alone). I guess its a blessing in a way. She's due a coolant change. And, she had developed a bit of a lumpy tickover and intermittent misfire recently. I was treating that as a seperate job, but I had to disconnect the fuel injectors as part of today's job, and when I did so, great clouds of copper oxide came off the contacts. Now she's back together and seemingly fixed, I noticed that she burst into life on the first turn of the key, and immediately ticked over rock solid and smooth.

 

Glad the 'old girl' is on the mend again!!!

 

Clueless, knowing how inaccessible that hose was there's every chance it's rarely been changed because it wasn't easy to get to. Job done now and Gothilda is no doubt raring to go!