General: D5 Intercooler replacement with pictures

[ianu]

Originally Posted by Bigjimknickers

Mine is blowing out of the front air intake & blowing oil onto the bumper!

How on earth are you getting oil back past the air filter to come back out the intake?? I think there is even a crude one way flap affair on the exit of the air filter box iirc
The inter-cooler is on the high pressure side of the turbo isn't it so unless you're getting pressure back past the turbo towards the intake...............?
Is the exhaust smoking black quite badly?

[Aps360]

Great write up, my friend asked me to help him but it was quicker me doing it lol, thank to the write up it took me 1.5 hrs start to finish, most of the time was spent trying to refit the intercooler sensor.

Thanks

[Ryan1000]

Originally Posted by Carrizos

Great instructions removal and refitting went fine until I tried to fit the sensor into the intercooler and found the hole is too small. Having seen posts from people in here and had some friends recommend using Coolparts I decided to save a bit more and bought one from them for £97 rather than the £250 for a Volvo part that I was quoted. By my rather basic approach to measuring their sensor hole appears to be just over 1mm too small.

I've just ordered my intercooler for my 2006 v70 d5 from coolparts on ebay. Did you say that the sensor hole was too small if so how did you overcome it thanks

[DerekA]

I have just yesterday faced the exact same problem. On the connical shaped sensor that is inserted into the Rad there is a green rubber/nylon? donut washer half way up with a diameter that appears to be fractionally too big. I contemplated drilling out the hole in the Rad (which looks perfectly feasible) but whilst playing with it half inserted, i got it to go in.

How, you ask?

Do you know of those fitness balancing boards which resemble a football with a flat piece of plywood attached to it - you stand on the plywood and balance on the ball with your feet either side of the football.

As you balance, your weight alternates side to side, front to back.

THAT is the action is was doing on the sensor - thumbs either side of the sensor back plate and alternating downward pressure left, back, right, front, in a clockwise order. And it just plopped in.

It was touch and go as I was nervous of splitting the washer but it is in. The actual molding on the coolpartuk rad doesn't look/feel an exact fit but the sensor is screwed tight now and working (I think!).

Good luck doing the job - it took me a while longer than others say here but it is always the case for occasional work on 110K+ mileage vehicles. Finding tools, working out the right tools (and the wrong ones!), working out how clips/connectors undo (by far the most irritating/frustrating part of the process), getting head round where the photo was taken from and prising apart things that should pop apart easily but are crusted up with dirt.

[DerekA]

Firstly many thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, with joint First Prize to the photo instructions from Ianu and Mr Gill for the inspiration in the first place.

Some notes having just finished:

1. Undoing and doing up the jubilee hose clips on the intercooler hoses is a massive PITA. Access is a nightmare and you have to be v patient using either a tiny fixed head spanner or one of those flexible socket set extenders.

However, do make doubly sure you re-attach them properly. I didnt and the hose blew off when I went for a test drive. Luckily no damage done.

2. The bumper clips work the same way as a screw and rawl plug as they are actually two pieces. I prised mine out with v thin headed pliers but to re-insert, pull the 'screw' half way out of the 'rawl plug' bit, insert, then push 'screw' back in.

3. Once you have everything undone and next step is to extract the intercooler rad (middle of the 3 in the sandwich), the way I found best was to tilt the front rad 45 degrees clockwise (as you face the front of the car) and get the RHS of this rad right down on the floor. This opens up the sandwich with just enough space to wriggle the intercooler Rad out down and out. two items of note in this process:
i. this front Rad has a solid hose/pipe coming into it on RHS which obv' doesnt flex. However, if you get your head right underneath the car and follow this solid pipe back, it connects to a flexible hose tucked up behind the bigger hose, and you can squeeze this down between bigger hose and body, thus allowing you to drop the front rad down to the ground. It is a wriggle though.
ii. Before starting to push and pull the intercooler rad to try and extract it from the middle of the sandwich, can I suggest getting two pieces of thin ply or correx and placing them across the inside face of the other two Rads. This will prevent sharp edges and the intercooler Rad hose ends dragging across the fins of the other rads and squashing them.

4. When re-assembling with new intercooler rad in place, I re-assembled the radiator sandwich first, then used a pump jack to slowly lift the sandwich back up into place, with a flat board across the bottom of the sandwich to spread the load. This way I was able to slowly manoeuvre the sandwich into place and onto the two locating pins sticking down vertically under the bonnet plate where the turbo hood sits. Once in place, I then shuffled under the car and inserted the two main bolts back up and tightened the whole assembly into place.

5. Throughout this whole process watch the bonnet release catch!!

[tomkirkland]

I've changed my Intercooler today.

Somethings I did differently, and maybe, might work well for two people, or even one working alone.

I removed the Skid Plate, which allowed access to the underside of the pack, but didn't remove the Coolant Radiator Bolts. I left them in place as I didn't want a full rad just falling down and stressing the A/C Radiator and pipework; my cars 15 years old, and that packs not been touched since the day the car was built.

I removed the Slam Panel, 6 bolts and it's free. One on the wing, one inside the wing (Remove the washer fill, one bot and it'll pull out), one each side and one each side front of the Radiator Pack.
Once these were removed, using long cable ties, I lay it back onto the engine releasing the bonnet warning sensor plug first, but left the catches in place. Make sure the cables aren't stressed to the catches. There also no need to touch the Air Bag sensors or plug. Cable tie or strap the panel to the Cross Brace to stop it wandering off

Once I'd removed the 4 pack bolts, I cable tied the A/C to the Crash Panel on each side allowing more access and removes the worry of it moving too far out of place. All this allowed me to rotate the now released Intercooler anti clockwise and past the slight restriction on the drivers side between the plastic trim around the Water Radiator. The Intercooler will now pop out from the top. Seemed a lot safer than dropping that A/C Rad, if that cracked I'd have to hold by breath

Removing the slam panel also allows better access to the bolts and generally is a less stressful job.

The Slam Panel lined up perfectly once refitted, but a test close of the bonnet with the lights out doesn't hurt as you can see if it's out of alignment easier.

[chevron]

Hi there, thanks for post and pics but unfortunately I'm not able to do this job by my self.
As I read a couple of hundred posts and by the symptoms and as it looks (oil on the front radiator and heavy black smoke) I faced the same problem, I think intercooler. Can anybody living near Enfield, London help me change this(paid off course)? I'm sick and tired of going to locals garages and pay for diagnostic and change parts and my car is still puffing heavy black smoke. Or if anybody recommends an honest garage who takes good care of the cars. My email address is talancaster@gmail.com.Thank you.

[frenchian]

I’ve just done my V70s intercooler. After 17 years and almost 220k miles I think it’s earned it’s keep.
Looking at all the posts, YouTube’s etc I decided to go the “top route” as I felt more comfortable keeping the other rads supported using a trolley jack. The slam panel was the easy bit, jiggling the rad out was an absolute PITA. I found that by gently lowering the rad pack I could get enough room to persuade the right hand side up, but only after loosening the aircon drier bracket slightly as it was catching. It was very tight - the width of the intercooler at the inlet/outlet was just more than the room between the two headlight mountings (part of the bodywork). Once the right hand side was up the job became easy. Oddly I found that on refitting it was easier to drop the left side in first.
One point - I undid my sensor once everything had been loosened only to find that the head of the screw crumbled away leaving the sensor firmly attached to the intercooler. It therefore had to come out with the rad. Once removed I decided not to refit it until everything was in position to avoid damage. This was an error - with everything loose it’s possible to get a Torx bit directly onto the screw, once bolted up it’s almost impossible to do anything, I ended up redropping the entire rad pack just to tighten that one small screw....
This is a job well worth doing though - it took me something like 2 hours “hands on”, the difference to the car is enormous, no more thick black smoke when the turbo kicks in and the performance is significantly crisper. I’m waiting to see if the fuel consumption has improved too.

[SidXC90]

Originally Posted by chevron

Hi there, thanks for post and pics but unfortunately I'm not able to do this job by my self.
As I read a couple of hundred posts and by the symptoms and as it looks (oil on the front radiator and heavy black smoke) I faced the same problem, I think intercooler. Can anybody living near Enfield, London help me change this(paid off course)? I'm sick and tired of going to locals garages and pay for diagnostic and change parts and my car is still puffing heavy black smoke. Or if anybody recommends an honest garage who takes good care of the cars. My email address is talancaster@gmail.com.Thank you.

Hi,

I highly recommend volvo diagnostics in rainham, east london. They are great, dont waste time / money and get the job done quick. I always take my volvo to them now as most garages just guess and go.

[XCF]

Can anyone offer any advice ? - 2010 XC90 and mid way through replacing the intercooler.

Got the old one out and went to swap the sensor over - but it doesn't seem to fit. The hole for the sensor to fit through looks ok, and the screw lines up etc, but its as if the black plastic side panel on the intercooler is stopping the sensor sit on the intercooler square on.

Anyone had this problem ?

My intercooler is Nissens .

Thanks

Edited to say - read the thread again and found the same issue just above. Found it popped in by screwing in part way then pushing on the other side. Panic over !