Today was a good day. We finally decided not to move to another house. Our daughter made a clear statement about her studies. I replaced the radiator and the themostat I got from my buddy 33 driver Henk.
Its not nice working on the 156: the car is packed with plastic things and everything is connected to another. Parts have to be removed for reaching to other parts. To replace the radiator there are two options: doing it with or without removing the front bumper. I started removing all parts attached to the radiator without removing the bumper.
The clamps to the hoses are simple but not multi usable. They have to be loosened with a simple twitch of the screw driver and attached again with a pair of pinchers. If it works. If not I replace them with a normal clamp to be fastened by turning with a screw driver. I had to remove several of them, smaller and bigger diameters. The bigger new type work better reusing. The smaller types I replaced.
Getting the radiator out of the engine compartment is a job of patience. After removing the air intake, the airfilter housing and the fan, the screws for dismantling the radiator become reachable. At the engine side. At the front it is more difficult when not removing the bumper. The little grill at the bottom of the bumper has to be removed to reach for the four screws that hold the airco radiator.
Removing the grill is a painstaking job, because of the attachment of the plastic grill as a one way fit. Four of the eight ends broke during the removal. To fit the grill right again I have to remove the bumper after all.
I also fitted a new thermostat I got from my budy Henk. Several hoses and electric lines are attached to this part. Removal of the hoses as described above, the electrics got off easy. Two bolts and the part was out. Refitting came with old school clamps for the hoses.
Refitting all parts went better as expected. The only slight difficulty was the fastening of the radiator screws at the bottom: two small screws to fasten a plastic screen to the radiator to stream the in flow to the cooling parts.
Tomorow I'll remove the front bumper to clean up al adjacent parts and derust the parts corroded.
