New Rad.......Bonnet off ?

[Rower]

I have a leak on my rad, one of the seams has split, as some re-soldering work was done on it about 3 years ago I reckon it needs replacing, my question is can I do the job without removing the bonnet, which I really do not want to do!
Any advice gratefully received.The car is an S3.

Guy

[shpub]

Yes you can but it is probably quicker and easier to remove it as the access is so so much better.

Steve

[M@H]

If you weren't going to remove it, I'd suggest getting the front off the ground quite a bit so you can open the bonnet wider and prop it with something longer than the original bonnet stay.. I'd take it off if it was me.. saves it falling down on you at an inoppertune moment

[GreenV8S]

I have a leak on my rad, one of the seams has split, as some re-soldering work was done on it about 3 years ago I reckon it needs replacing, my question is can I do the job without removing the bonnet, which I really do not want to do!
Any advice gratefully received.The car is an S3.

Guy

You can do it without removing the bonnet, however it will literally be a real pain this way. I suggest you remove the bonnet. I've experimented with several ways to do this and found a way that works really well on mine. Jack the front of the car on far enough that the front face of the bonnet (i.e. the bumpers and bottom edge of the lower grill) sits on the ground. Use a groundsheet or similar to protect the paintwork from the ground. Be carefull not to bash the bonnet against the ground as the corner of the indicator lenses will probably take some of the weight, and they don't look particularly strong. On mine, the bonnet balances nicely in this position.

Disconnect the lights, alarm and fresh air ducts from the bonnet. Undo the lock nuts on the sideways bolts that act as pivots for the bonnet, and undo these two bolts just far enough to clear the vertical box section on the chassis that they are screwed in to. At this point the bonnet is in the right position wrt the car but not attached to it. You can either 'walk' the bonnet away from the car or lower the car and roll it back away from the bonnet. (I tend to leave the car where it is to save messing around with jacks.)

Just to be on the safe side, I do this against a wall and put padding between the bonnet and the wall in case it blows over foward, and use a piece of cord to make sure it can't blow back on to the car. Haven't needed these precautions so far.

Refitting is, as the say, the reverse. Manoever the bonnet and car into the right position, jack the car up/down if necessary to line the bolts up, thread the bolts in to the chasses and reconnect everything. Takes me about ten minutes to remove, and about the same to refit. This approach also avoids upsetting the bonnet alignment since none of the adjusters are moved.

Hope this helps,
Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

[Rower]

Thanks for that you guys, particularly your instuctions Peter i will give it a go !

Guy

[dern]

I did the rad on my s3 and then sometime later took my bonnet off to take my engine out (unconnected reason) and I would say that taking the rad out with the bonnet on is a doddle compared to taking the bonnet off and having to realign it when putting it back on as well as reconnecting all the lights and so on that you disturbed. Edited to add - the bolts that peter decribed were rusty on mine so I had to disconnect the hinges from the actual bonnet.

Just get 2 reasonably thick paving slabs or bits of wood, drive the front wheels on to them and you can now open your bonnet past vertical - put some carpet on the floor to protect the leading edge of the bonnet. You will now how plenty of room to get to your rad in my experience.

Maybe it's different on the v8s and there's less room.

Regards,

Mark

>> Edited by dern on Wednesday 11th December 13:09

[funbobby]

noticed a mention about bonnet adjustments as mine is slightly out,it needs to go sideways a little, is this fairly straightforward to do?

[jims2]

Very straightforward, i did mine sometime
ago and it only took about 20-30mins. See
directions below but i have to admit they are not mine GreenV8S man replied to a
mail question ages ago and these are what i used.

"You'll need a couple of 3/4 open-enders and about 15 minutes. It isn't too
hard to do as long as you take the weight of the front of the bonnet so you
aren't trying to hold it with one hand while you do the nuts up. I use a
hydraulic jack with a piece of wood on, roughly between the hinges.

My procedure was to shut the bonnet, figure out which way I wanted to move
it and then release the catch and tweak the appropriate adjuster.Repeat a
few times for the different directions of adjustment and its all done. You
may want to go round again to get it 'spot on' but I found I could get it
within a couple of mil the first time and the dimensions aren't all that
accurate in the first place!

The up/down slide adjuster is at an angle and affects the front-rear too, so
I got the height right first with these. You then center the rear of the
bonnet (windscreen end) sideways by adjusting the horizontal adjusters
individually, and set the front-rear position by adjusting both together.
You will probably also need to re-center the bonnet pins within their
catches too so the bonnet opens and closes easily - if you slacken off the
large haxagonal cup you'll find they can slide around quite a bit. Finally
adjust the height of the pins so they hold the bonnet firmly closed with no
vertical slack. I've done this a couple of times and I've never managed to
get the bonnet stuck closed. The usual problem is that it won't close (don't
force it) because the pins don't line up with the catch. Pete's idea to
remove these pins completely may not be a bad idea but I've never found it
necessary. If there was a complete disaster, you can actually undo the pivot
with the bonnet closed, and this would probably let you skew the bonnet to
release the pins. As I say, I haven't found this necessary.

The only problem I had was that the front of the bonnet is actually about
half an inch wider than the bodywork it closes against - I ended up leaving
a gap so there wasn't an obvious step."