MyE28.com

This weekend ended up being E28 oriented.....not completely by my choosing. I'll start by describing the good, then the bad, and lastly, I'll ask for advice.

Tshultz and I took off in the morning to head to a junkyard in Colo that advertised having a 1988 635csi in their yard (thought it was a new drop in the yard ... if it was, then someone had torn through the car in the last day or two. Fortunately, it had a fairly new radiator for an automatic. I've had some cooling issues recently, so chose to take the radiator, and wrestled the Tranny cooling lines out for grins.

I flushed (boiled out) the radiator and pressure tested it on Saturday. Everything came up roses.

Sunday morning, I pulled the old radiator and realized the cause of my previous cooling issues. I'm guessing, based on appearances, that the transmission cooler (inside the core), must have been leaking. I had 2/3s of the tranny covered on the side in between the A/C condenser and the radiator. (You know, that side of the radiator that you rarely see.)

After replacing the radiator in my 535is. Knowing how much of a PAIN it was to remove the tranny lines on the junker, I chose to leave the originals in the car. (That sense of foreboding you are all feeling right now is perfectly justified.) After tightening everything up, I took it for a drive to see how much better the car cooled. Wow, what a difference. The car never hit 12 o'clock on the temp gooahj, even when it was idling for a long period of time. When driving, the engine ran cool and very nice.

Upon arriving home, my kids yelled that I had a puddle under the front of the car. Now I'm thinking that it's antifreeze, and that the lower line needed to be reset. NOPE. The fluid was red.

Seems that I must have jostled my 25 year old tranny cooler lines and caused (or exacerbated) a leak. Now, under fairly high pressure, hot ATF was spraying out quickly. DAMMIT!

Car goes back in the air, and I begin wrestling the old tranny cooler lines. OMG, what a job.

QUESTIONS time:

#1) Do I buy new, or get my hoses replaced by a local hydraulic guy.

Considerations:
Time -- Of course, I have a TSD rallye that I leave for on Friday.
Availability -- it appears that some of the providers either don't have 1 or both of the lines, or that one is no longer available.

#2) RealOEM, and the other suppliers, show a hose that attaches to my tranny as having a banjo bolt type of system to attach to the tranny. Neither the part I removed from my car, or the part off the junker had a banjo bolt. they had a bent "90" on the end of the hose, with a flanged compression fitting. AARGH....if I order one up and it's wrong, the TSD rallye is out of the picture. Any thoughts here?

My car is a January, 1987 manufacture. '87 535is with the 4HP22E tranny (pretty sure that's correct).



I'm badly in need of some rational advice. This has put me in a "kick the dog" mood. (No animals have been harmed in this thread, btw.)


Best regards,

Eric

'87 535is (January build) with 4HP22E tranny

My suggestion is as follows...

According to the ETK there are actually 3 hoses. There is hose 17 22 1 177 287 which is one of the lines to the radiator. You have 17 22 1 707 538 which connects to the 287 line and has a Banjo fitting near the top of the trans. And lastly there is 17 22 1 712 243. My suggestion is this, your problem is only near the radiator, so I would look to replace only 287 and 243. You can call the local dealer and see if they are available or not. I do not see them as NLA though.
Unfortunately these are probably not in stock and so getting them in time to replace for the TSD rally is probably not going to happen.

What I would do in your situation would be to take the lines to a shop that makes hydraulic hoses for fork lifts. Most fork lifts use metric sizes and that is critical because using a standard hose and fitting on a metric line does not work. This will be far cheaper and probably last just as long.

Hope this helps,
Rob

I'd take the hoses to a hydraulic line repair shop and have them replace the rubber bits...just use the exact same terminations.



just saw Rob's post...oh well...call it X2 then.

ECS Tuning has the parts, give em a call. 1.800.924.5172 see if you can get em in time.

Anyone know what line pressure we are dealing with? I'll assume nothing special as typical line pressure for transmission coolers are very similar to the pressures seen in fuel injection.

Kick the dog for good measure.

What I've done on other low pressure applications is...

Cut the crimp collar off with a cutting wheel or Dremel. Your cut is going to be parallel to the line. Cut through it down to the rubber line and peel it off. Slice the line and remove it. Any good parts store, or even the hydraulic shop, will have transmission cooler hose in bulk, it has to be transmission/hydraulic hose...IIRC it's rated at 300psi......get the appropriate size and length and use fuel injection clamps (plural) on each connection. Done.

Don't use band clamps...they usually will seep unless you double them and offset the screw fixtures...then torque them to damn near yeild...

I appreciate all the thoughts. I chose to knock off shipping / transit time. In about 2 hours, my local hydraulic shop will have my original tubes refitted with new flexible hose. This will allow me to spend the remaining time until my TSD Rallye bitching that I cannot get the damned flared nut coupling on the top/side of the tranny to seat......trust me, I can feel the issue happening now.

Be careful when having your local guy do it...as apparently the metric fittings used by BMW are NOT common. To make it all work out, they are cutting off the compression fittings that hold the hose to the tubes, brazing on a new tube-to-hose coupling. I was lucky to find a hydraulic company here in Denver that can braze aluminum -- several others wouldn't even consider the problem when they learned the tubing was aluminum.

Also, for those thinking "just replace the tubing with newly bent 'whatever'", I was told that unless I wanted to run full-length hose with the appropriate ends, it was best to use the original bent tube.

So my last question, so that I can swing by my local autoparts shop on the way home and be armed with everything needed: IF YOU HAVE TO REFILL THE OIL LINES, AND ACCOUNT FOR SOME FLUID LOSS IN THE TRANNY, WHAT IS THE VOLUME OF FLUID REQUIRED FOR AN AUTO TRANNY FLUID CHANGE. I'd normally use my Bently, but it's at home next to the car.

TIA, Eric

Are you sure it's the flare and not the fitting that is leaking? Where the flare nuts attach to the trany there is a fitting that uses a special internal drive (12 point) similar to a torx but not the same and torx will strip it out. They are a pain to tighten and only tighten with the special drive but the drivers are usually available at the chain auto parts places.

Now you wan tto be sure the fitting is tighter than the flare or if not you will spin the fitting when trying to loosen the flair. Possible kink and ruin the tubing. If it was loose you might tighten the flare but still not have the fitting tight enough.

tn535i wrote:Are you sure it's the flare and not the fitting that is leaking? Where the flare nuts attach to the trany there is a fitting that uses a special internal drive (12 point) similar to a torx but not the same and torx will strip it out. They are a pain to tighten and only tighten with the special drive but the drivers are usually available at the chain auto parts places.

Now you wan tto be sure the fitting is tighter than the flare or if not you will spin the fitting when trying to loosen the flair. Possible kink and ruin the tubing. If it was loose you might tighten the flare but still not have the fitting tight enough.

Not sure what you mean, here. I don't have torx on any fitting. Also, my fitting for the output from the tranny is not similar to the one shown on Realoem.com. Instead, my fitting is a 90 degree with a flared / flanged compression fitting - and not a banjo bolt.

My fittings were holding fine. What was leaking were the "flexible" hoses. Given that they were 26 years old, and have been using high-temp ATF fluid for these years, the hose(s) cracked and burst while driving. When I replaced the radiator, I inadvertently caused an already leaking hose to crack further and burst.

At the end of the day, my local hydraulic hose / tube guy was able to finish the job in a couple hours. The price was similar to a couple new transmission lines - without the express freight for an odd/oversized package.

I'll be spending tonight on my back -- and not in the way you were thinking....unfortunately.

The flare fittings on the transmission end of the line bolt to a fitting screwed into the transmission. It can be hard to tell if the flare is leaking or if it's the fitting and seal that goes into the trans case. That fitting is all but covered up by the big nut on the flare. However, inside the fitting (flare removed) is an internal drive that is similar to the torx. If the fitting is loose you'll have all kinds of problems, not to mention getting the flare nut loose if the nut it tighter than the fitting.

You asked for advice and I was just pointing to a watch out for potential leak that might be confused with the flare or hose end. Hope yours are tight and not leaking and no issues. At least with this little fitting.

When we swapped out our auto trans one of the flares refused to budge and the fitting came loose first leaving virtually no way to remove the line but cut it. Luckily we had an extra set of lines and the slight differnece in the trans cooler end and orientation was still compatible.

tn535i wrote:You asked for advice and I was just pointing to a watch out for potential leak that might be confused with the flare or hose end. Hope yours are tight and not leaking and no issues. At least with this little fitting.

Hope my response hadn't sounded ungrateful. I truly meant that I wasn't understanding what you meant by a torx fitting. After having been through the transmission lines, I had only found (normal) hydraulic compression fittings - albeit metric hydraulic fittings. I appreciated any and all comments.

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As to completing the job: IT IS DONE!! This was not, in any uncertain terms, my favorite job under a car. Because of the leaking / burst hose, I had a complete mess under the car.

Routing the tubes through the suspension, up through the small oval hole to get the hoses to the radiator, and connecting the outlet hose to the effing top side of the transmission (with little room between the transmission gear selector, transmission tunnel, and engine block) was a pain. But, now that it's done, I feel rewarded with a well-shifting car that doesn't appear to be leaking at all (this after several double checks).

NP, no offense. Mostly offering this as I've seen it a couple times and it's a watch out when removing or replacing those hoses. I've also noticed BMW changed hose routings and end styles on e30's from various years.

Anyone know of a hydraulic line fixer/place in the Seattle area that could do what the OP had done?

The rubber bits on my 528eA are seeping pretty badly. Both between the tranny and the hardline and between the radiator and hardline.