Hi Guys,

I'm on King Island, no workshop manual and few tools. This am I walked out to find a pool of coolant under my ef11 fairmont. Investigation revealed a leak under the inlet manifold. After crawling under te car I could see that it was where the rubber pipe joined the offshoot of thelarger steel pipe that runs up over the starter and behind the engine. There is a short 6" section of hose that then joins to another steel pipe up toward the air con compressor.

I fiddled with the pipe and it the steel immediatelly gave way, corroded through about 1 cm from the main pipe. I took the piece of hose off and took the metal that was still in it out and I have done the best I can to silicon up the join and clamp the hose back onto my 1cm bit of steel.

Obviosly I am going to need to change the whole pipe, but this looks like a nightmare. Where does this pipe attach too behind the engin and what is the best way to go about removing it? I will obviously replace all the hoses at the same time, but without a hoist it looks like a complete PITA.

Is this a common issue with falcons of this vintage and can you still buy the pipe? Any advice appreciated.

It sound slike the heater hose pipe.
From what I know it goes around the back of the motor , up the drivers side and into the back of the water pump.

its the heater pipe and yes they do rust out, i havent herd of it before on a falcon but on other cars of the same age or older i have, im not sure how to remove it, its quite easy with the engine out and im sure with a little bit of swearing could be done with the motor still in the car

Well my options for taking the engine out are pretty limited - so I hope this is not required. My car is 198k with a full service history and very well maintained, so I am surprised at how much the pipe had corroded - but there you go

my heater pipe rusted out as well on my EF.

It's a fairly big job to replace it but here's what needs to be done.

the heater pipe comes in 2 parts.
1) back of the water pump, around the back of the motor to the passenger side where its reside's under the inlet manifold (this is known as Heater Pipe 1).
2) Out of the front thermostat housing part & it resides as well under the inlet manifold. (this is known as heater pipe 2)

there is a little 3" or so hose that joins heater pipe 1 & 2 together.

Changing heater pipe 2 is easy & can be done in little time (maybe 2 hours). Changing heater pipe 1 takes a little more time & also you will need to remove the automatic transmission crossmember bolts so that the engine tilts back for you to be able to remove the heater pipe 1 from over the transmission.

Its not that hard, drop your tail shaft, put your jack under the back of the gearbox, tilt the entire box and motor as one unit, drop your exhaust manifold. you should now have JUST enough room to replace it.

OK - I am getting the picture now.

So in summary I need to unbolt the exhaust manifold. I need to remove gearbox crossmember, disconnect tailshaft, use jack to allow the engine to tilt to allow some access, have all the hoses disconnected from under the inlet manifold.

I should then be able to reach bolts that hold the pipe at the back of the engine x 2. Once this is done I can then wiggle and jiggle the pipe out (I am assuming it will be easiest going underneath the car). Thread the pipe back through from underneath, seating into waterpump with o ring. Bolt back to engine, jack up so gearboox cross member can be reinstalled, paut exhaust manifold back on, connect hoses, fill coolant.

Sounds like heaps of fun!!!

So what I guess will really happen:

Strip 2 studs trying to remove exhaust manifold. Tilt engine and gearbox but still fail to get big hands in to undo bolds at back of head. Spend three hours trying to "thread" pipe out. Give up and cut with hacksaw. Spend three hours trying to to thread new pipe in. Eventually get it but in forcing it in have bent a bit and brackets wont line up with bold holes. Finally get it reconnected and everything else sorted. Fire her up - O ring does not seal at waterpump. Exhaust manifold leaking.

Sounds like I need to get my race face on.....

wow spot on, did we just become best friends? we have so much in common haha

Yeah we should have a beer and talk about the good ol days or something - havent got a good condition heater pipe have ya??

yeah, but it would take a while to post down to you

When you live on King Island, it doesnt matter where its comming from its a PITA.

I would check its not just the heater tap thats rusted out.... very common on these....

yeah heater taps you can get new on ebay, not sure if they are any good or if they are chinese s**t though

Heater tap is fine - its the junction between the main heater pipe and the smaller pipe that connects to the front steel pipe. The rest of the pipe seems fine, but of the 5cm of pipe that the hose connects to, i've got about 1 cm left - siliconed up to within an inch of its PITA life and held on tenuously by a barely gripping hose clamp.....

Heater tap is fine - its the junction between the main heater pipe and the smaller pipe that connects to the front steel pipe. The rest of the pipe seems fine, but of the 5cm of pipe that the hose connects to, i've got about 1 cm left - siliconed up to within an inch of its PITA life and held on tenuously by a barely gripping hose clamp.....