s60 intercooler

[marcus1875]

Hi guys, quick move over to here from the TVR forum.
My mates S60 2005 facelift model 108k miles needs a new intercooler. Quoted at around £500 to replace.
How hard is this to do for a DIY job? Is there any step by step guide?
Wheres the best place to get one? I'm not too bad at DIY mechs owning a tVR. Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Marcus

[confused_buyer]

marcus1875 said:

Hi guys, quick move over to here from the TVR forum.
My mates S60 2005 facelift model 108k miles needs a new intercooler. Quoted at around £500 to replace.
How hard is this to do for a DIY job? Is there any step by step guide?
Wheres the best place to get one? I'm not too bad at DIY mechs owning a tVR. Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Marcus

Not difficult. Even I can do it in about an hour (with a lot of swearing and I'm crap with spanners). It can be wiggled out from between rad and condenser. It is fiddly, but possible. You can either take it out below or you can unbolt the top slam panel and it will come out the top.

Decent Nissens intercoolers can be had for about £80 on ebay. Make sure you get one with/without the sensor hole as required.

[marcus1875]

Cheers mate. I'll try to persuade him to let me do it.
Marcus

[Super Slo Mo]

I did it on a 2002 V70 some years back. Don't remember it being as quick as an hour although it was my first time. My mechanic reckoned 3 hours for him to do it, but he was doing it the proper way by draining the coolant and removing the 3 radiators in one block, whereas I did it as described above, also with a lot of swearing and shouting, but there's nothing unusual in that .

Think it took me 3 hours with a couple of good tea breaks in the middle. Bumper and both headlights had to come off if I recall.

[confused_buyer]

Front bumper certainly has to come off and the front part of the undertray.

If you have access to a ramp then it is probably easier to take it out the bottom. If not, then you can unbolt the top slam panel. IIRC the headlights do not have to come out but there is better access if they do.

Be careful not to break the aircon connections or the receiver/dryer and ideally an extra person to support these helps a lot. The radiator/intercooler/condensor are all held in as a "sandwich" with 4 bolts.

If you do take it out the top make sure you don't kink the bonnet release when putting the slam panel back (you don't need to disconnect these - just move the panel to one side whilst working) and make sure you place the MAP sensor on the Intercooler outlet in place off the car before putting the new intercooler in.

It is fiddly but it all comes apart in a fairly logical way. The "official" way to do it is drain the coolant, drain aircon, disconnect the lot and take the whole rad-pack out as one.

[MJG280]

Utube has various tutorials. Try starting here

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=volvo...

Edited by MJG280 on Wednesday 16th December 21:43