Coolant leaking from flange (heart valve?)

[rcy]

Engine is a 2.0 AEG. Coolant is leaking from the plastic flange thingy where all the heater and coolant hoses and temp sender mount (is this known as the heart valve)? It is leaking where it mounts to the engine block. Is it normal for the 0-ring in there to wear out, or is it possibly just some nuts that need tightening.

On that note, I managed to tighten down the nut that is towards the front of the car, but the one that is at the back is a pain to get at - there is a metal coolant pipe that runs over top of the bolt making access hard, plus there is a bracket bolted on top of the nut that holds the flange down. I can tighten the bolt on the bracket easily, but I don't think tightening that one will really tighten the one behind it (which is the one that holds the flange down). Any tips?

Thanks.

[kcfoxie]

My friends 98 had to have some plastic hoses replaces due to leaking and cracking over age. I think this happened when the car turned 5 (and had surpassed 100k miles). RE: that nut.. welcome to german engineering. They've done crazy things like this for years... I know, I just overhauled an aircooled engine a week ago!

[Porkchop]

I just ordered a new flange from www.worldimpex.com for $9 recently... it comes with the new o-ring. If seems to be common for the flange to crack and for the o-ring to "go bad"... I guess it gets hard or shrinks or something. If you're just being really cheap, you could take the flange off, remove the o-ring and take it to your FLAPS. They can go through their thermostat gasket box and find an o-ring to match it.

[rcy]

Ordered a new flange that comes with o-ring from local dealership and it was only $15 CDN. They recommended two additonal o-rings for the sensors mounted on flange which will need to be removed and placed into the new flange. By the time I added G12 ($15 for 1.5 litres) the total came to just over $30 CDN. Now comes the hard part..figuring how to get the damn thing off.

[hannaco]

Getting the old one off is relatively easy, putting the new one back on is the hard part.

[rcy]

Actually, it was way easier than I led myself to believe. The metal coolant pipe that I mentioned actually pivots up slighty out of the way once the outside nut is removed. The bracket that attaches it to the coolant flange bolt is actually open on the bottom (like a horseshoe) which allows the pipe to rotate up slightly. After that it's easy to get a 10mm socket in there and remove the bolts holding the flange on. The new one went on easy too. Hardest part was removing the hoses from the old one (I think there's like 4 or 5 hoses on the damn thing) and trying to get those metal hose clamps back on. That will be my next tool...hose clamp pliers - vice grips, while a versatile tool, just don't cut it.

No more leak, and I took this opportunity to replace the thermostat as well - see my other post regarding the thermostat.