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D5 Intercooler replacement with pictures

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Old Mar 11th, 2013, 21:06   #1
ianu
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Thumbs up D5 Intercooler replacement with pictures

First off I'd like to thank D5Gill for the guide on how to do this originally which I've shamelessly stolen to help put this one together with a few pictures to help as well.
Mine has been leaking for quite a while and I've chosen to replace mine with a new rad as I didn't think the old one had done too bad considering.
SO - hopefully the important bits are already covered to fix it - but the removal/refitting is still the same either way.

However I didn't seem to need to do all the steps D5Gill needed to.
So first up:
Remove the headlamps - easy



No need to unplug all the cables - just one (the red tag prises up to release the plug)


Remove air in take snorkel (10mm):

There is no clip on the other end of this - it just pulls out.

The intercooler hoses at the rad end (7mm unless you've got a tiny screwdriver that will fit)


drivers side (rhd)

Remove the sensor plug (swap the sensor to new rad when removed using a small star socket)


Passenger side

Remove the wheelarch/bumper securing clip (push out the middle and release the clip)


BUMPER REMOVAL
Now comes what is probably the most challenging part of this job - the elusive bumper removal. There are quite literally 2 bolts that hold this damn thing on. But it's the hidden clips that will get your patience boiling.
So for the first time on here (I'll probably post in a quick 2 minute guide seperately as well later) photographs of the little b**gers that you need to know about.
OK the simple bit:
2 of these:

One of these (headlamp washer feed):

2 of these (Fog light) squeeze the spring clip in to release the plug. You can get to the passenger side from above, the drivers side from below:


To release the clips at the side - some have suggested a hard pull (I'm sure it works - but you never know how hard is hard enough unless you know what you're fighting against) It sounds brutal and probably needs to be but if you know where the clips are, you can spring it off quite easily. So here they are:



I used the handle of a plastic craft knife (with the blade removed) to prise between wheel arch trim and bumper trim to spring the vertical clips free. The clip along the horizontal edge is a U shaped channel and hooks over a guide behind it. It will spring off - but will also slide off when you pull it forward.
The other side:




It will literally fall away once the clips are clear. make sure you have a soft surface to lay it on and marvel at how simple that was !!

So you're now left with this:

I then removed the lower skid guard - 6 bolts - fairly straightforward although the front mountings do have a small locating lug that needs to be lifted slightly to unhook it (i.e push the guard up towards the radiator and pull forward)
You'll then see this:

I removed these 2 bolts too - just gave a little bit of flexibility which came in useful

Remove this:

The two small rubber 'guides between the aircon rad and the beam across the front pull off easily and the clips are the same principle as the bumper/wheelarch clips - you can get your hand in the cross beam and push the centres out.

D5Gill mentions "Detach the front coss member and guide it so that it will allow you to access the intercooler."
I wasn't really sure which bit that was as the beam across the front didn't look like it was removable. the only other mounting seemed to be the radiator bolts here:

Releasing these each side lowered the whole sandwich.
Undo the oil cooler brackets:


And then the four bolts holding the three rads together:
Top drivers side:

Top passenger side

Bottom passenger side:

PITA bottom drivers side:


I had no cause to touch anything that looked like an airbag sensor on the front cross member of the subframe ?? At this point everything was loose and free to move. Note the water radiator is heavy unsupported and can be a bit of a handful when you're trying to juggle three radiators to get some space to slide the middle one out.
This picture shows everything loose and the new rad repositioned - the arrowed bit I unplugged the cable to stop it getting stretched:


To get the rad out was a bit of a wrestle and I didn't think at first it would come out as the inlet and outlet pipes at each end snug round the water radiator. With a bit of logical will power and manouvering of the air con rad and water rad it popped out from the bottom. The new one went back in within 2 minutes (after I'd removed as much of Abingdon/CORE & Kirton as I could).
Refitting they say is the reverse of the above !!
I found it helpful as soon as I could to get the water rad bolts back in place to take the weight of the whole assembly so I could start to get the four sandwich bolts in place to help position everything back in alignment:



Being methodical I simply worked backwards bolting and clipping everything back together.
Don't forget: the drivers side fog light cable, the cable to the air con rad, the washer jet feed pipe, the bumper/wheelarch clip.

Mine is a 163bhp manual so I don't know if there are other bits on the 185 auto's that will be different and in the way - but I was suprised how little had to come off (once the bumpoer was off) to do this. The cross member and airbag sensors still puzzle me a bit as I touched neither.

However a huge thanks to D5Gill for giving me the confience to give this a go - so this in conjuction with 'Gill's guide should be everything you need to have a go if you're handy with a spanner.
Special tools 7mm small spanner, sockets 10mm - 14mm, small star key (rad sensor) and a stiff plastic thingy for poking and prising the bumper trim apart.
At the time of writing the new rad was £225.42 + delivery from FRF - thanks Gents.

Only regret I didn't have more time to clean up more of the oil - it was quite a mess behind there - maybe a summer project :-)

Good luck - the thought of £200 still in my pocket makes me feel great.

Cheers
Ian.
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Old Mar 11th, 2013, 21:53   #2
owenfackrell
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Ian. From memory the airbag sensors are the white rectangles that you can see in your second and third pictures. The cross member can be unbolted if you wish but i got mine out the same way you did. I don't remember any difference for the 163 auto.
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Old Jul 27th, 2013, 16:35   #3
bigwheel
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ianu View Post
First off I'd like to thank D5Gill for the guide on how to do this originally which I've shamelessly stolen to help put this one together with a few pictures to help as well.
Mine has been leaking for quite a while and I've chosen to replace mine with a new rad as I didn't think the old one had done too bad considering.
SO - hopefully the important bits are already covered to fix it - but the removal/refitting is still the same either way.

However I didn't seem to need to do all the steps D5Gill needed to.
So first up:
Remove the headlamps - easy



No need to unplug all the cables - just one (the red tag prises up to release the plug)


Remove air in take snorkel (10mm):

There is no clip on the other end of this - it just pulls out.

The intercooler hoses at the rad end (7mm unless you've got a tiny screwdriver that will fit)


drivers side (rhd)

Remove the sensor plug (swap the sensor to new rad when removed using a small star socket)


Passenger side

Remove the wheelarch/bumper securing clip (push out the middle and release the clip)


BUMPER REMOVAL
Now comes what is probably the most challenging part of this job - the elusive bumper removal. There are quite literally 2 bolts that hold this damn thing on. But it's the hidden clips that will get your patience boiling.
So for the first time on here (I'll probably post in a quick 2 minute guide seperately as well later) photographs of the little b**gers that you need to know about.
OK the simple bit:
2 of these:

One of these (headlamp washer feed):

2 of these (Fog light) squeeze the spring clip in to release the plug. You can get to the passenger side from above, the drivers side from below:


To release the clips at the side - some have suggested a hard pull (I'm sure it works - but you never know how hard is hard enough unless you know what you're fighting against) It sounds brutal and probably needs to be but if you know where the clips are, you can spring it off quite easily. So here they are:



I used the handle of a plastic craft knife (with the blade removed) to prise between wheel arch trim and bumper trim to spring the vertical clips free. The clip along the horizontal edge is a U shaped channel and hooks over a guide behind it. It will spring off - but will also slide off when you pull it forward.
The other side:




It will literally fall away once the clips are clear. make sure you have a soft surface to lay it on and marvel at how simple that was !!

So you're now left with this:

I then removed the lower skid guard - 6 bolts - fairly straightforward although the front mountings do have a small locating lug that needs to be lifted slightly to unhook it (i.e push the guard up towards the radiator and pull forward)
You'll then see this:

I removed these 2 bolts too - just gave a little bit of flexibility which came in useful

Remove this:

The two small rubber 'guides between the aircon rad and the beam across the front pull off easily and the clips are the same principle as the bumper/wheelarch clips - you can get your hand in the cross beam and push the centres out.

D5Gill mentions "Detach the front coss member and guide it so that it will allow you to access the intercooler."
I wasn't really sure which bit that was as the beam across the front didn't look like it was removable. the only other mounting seemed to be the radiator bolts here:

Releasing these each side lowered the whole sandwich.
Undo the oil cooler brackets:


And then the four bolts holding the three rads together:
Top drivers side:

Top passenger side

Bottom passenger side:

PITA bottom drivers side:


I had no cause to touch anything that looked like an airbag sensor on the front cross member of the subframe ?? At this point everything was loose and free to move. Note the water radiator is heavy unsupported and can be a bit of a handful when you're trying to juggle three radiators to get some space to slide the middle one out.
This picture shows everything loose and the new rad repositioned - the arrowed bit I unplugged the cable to stop it getting stretched:


To get the rad out was a bit of a wrestle and I didn't think at first it would come out as the inlet and outlet pipes at each end snug round the water radiator. With a bit of logical will power and manouvering of the air con rad and water rad it popped out from the bottom. The new one went back in within 2 minutes (after I'd removed as much of Abingdon/CORE & Kirton as I could).
Refitting they say is the reverse of the above !!
I found it helpful as soon as I could to get the water rad bolts back in place to take the weight of the whole assembly so I could start to get the four sandwich bolts in place to help position everything back in alignment:



Being methodical I simply worked backwards bolting and clipping everything back together.
Don't forget: the drivers side fog light cable, the cable to the air con rad, the washer jet feed pipe, the bumper/wheelarch clip.

Mine is a 163bhp manual so I don't know if there are other bits on the 185 auto's that will be different and in the way - but I was suprised how little had to come off (once the bumpoer was off) to do this. The cross member and airbag sensors still puzzle me a bit as I touched neither.

However a huge thanks to D5Gill for giving me the confience to give this a go - so this in conjuction with 'Gill's guide should be everything you need to have a go if you're handy with a spanner.
Special tools 7mm small spanner, sockets 10mm - 14mm, small star key (rad sensor) and a stiff plastic thingy for poking and prising the bumper trim apart.
At the time of writing the new rad was £225.42 + delivery from FRF - thanks Gents.

Only regret I didn't have more time to clean up more of the oil - it was quite a mess behind there - maybe a summer project :-)

Good luck - the thought of £200 still in my pocket makes me feel great.

Cheers
Ian.
Must thank you for your post. Two week ago now I replaced the intercooler on my d5 after smoke under load, and reduced mpg. Following your guided walkthrough I managed to complete the job in just over two hours all in. coolpartsuk supplied new intercooler for £107 postage inc. Thank you again, what looked a bit of a job wasn't so bad with the help of your step by step guide
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Old Mar 17th, 2014, 13:47   #4
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Thanks for your article on how to replace the intercooler. I have just replaced mine with one from coolpartsuk on ebay for £102 inc postage, arrived next day.
When I was putting back the radiator 'sandwich' I had trouble realigning it and could not get the 2 long bolts that go up vertically from below to locate easily.
The reason was because there are 2 'finger' bolts that have to locate into the holes in 2 rubber blocks which are on the top of the radiator.
If you look on the 4th photo of the air intake snorkel you can see one of the locating finger bolts (10mm) to the right of the right hand snorkel retaining bolt. The other is in the same place on the left hand side of the car.
I would suggest removing these at the same time as the snorkel bolts as it also allows more movement for the radiator when disassembling.
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Old Feb 17th, 2015, 21:37   #5
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Default Inter Cooler replacement MTE Remap

Just finished replacing intercooler on 163 Auto. I think there are a couple of ways to do this. I didn't touch the Air con pipes I removed the cross bar (slam bar) and didn't disconnect the air bag sensors. I don't think there would be any implications if I did as they are simply plug in clips with no warning notes etc. I was then able to jiggle the I/C unit clear.
Must say after replacement with OE part of ebay and also an MTE remap the car is allot smoother, powerful and quieter.
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Old Feb 18th, 2015, 13:12   #6
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That's the method I used, however I did disconnect the air bag sensors. Nothing happens. It's a little tight getting the IC out through the top but it only took about an hour and a half.
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Old Feb 27th, 2015, 22:12   #7
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Great guide, followed today whilst replacing my intercooler. Can't believe how easily the bumper came off:-)

Thanks!
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Old Mar 1st, 2015, 23:21   #8
RoyMacDonald
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Ian, I can't believe how clean your car looks underneath, after all the mud you've wallowed in.
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Old Jun 12th, 2016, 21:14   #9
Djyohan
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Hi guys5.
I am new here but I already see that Information Is as good as ever. This post helped me to change the intercooler in about 3-4 hours ( had 2 small kids to "help" me😂😂😂😂😂&#128514
The car is like new. The old intercooler looks like it's been through the WW2.
I am surprised it actually lasted this long. I only bought the s60 d5 2 months ago and 11000 miles went in since.
It was really bad in the past week that a cloud of black smoke came through the exhaust which was embarrassing. It had shown signs for about 6 weeks as at steady 2300 rpm at 70 mph was smoking black too.
Now after I fitted and intercooler from eurocarparts ( EIS made in Germany) car feels like new.

I would like thank again for the authors of this post as it saved me hassle to see a diesel Specialist ( garage did not want to take care saying no clue why the black smoke. I guess we can open our own garage then😊😊😊😊&#128522 and a couple of hundred in labour.



Thanks again
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Old Jul 5th, 2016, 19:18   #10
DaveXC
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Excellent guide, I'll be following this soon as I have black smoke and loss of mpg/confused power delivery.

Is it always the intercooler or possibly just the hoses? Would you put new hoses on as well?

A new intercooler is only £87.74 on Ebay, mind. Probably worth doing on my 12 year old XC90.
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