Thermostat Housing Removal E34 M20 Engine 520i

[tstolber]

Hi

This is my first post here. I have owned my 89 E34 520i for 3 years and it has only had one tiny little problemin that time. Its got 167K miles on the clock and is still going strong.

The other day the temperature started going up so I pulled over, topped up with coolant and noticed that it was leaking out of the thermostat housing because a pipe had come off due to the thermostat housing breaking.

I went to remove the thermostat housing - which is in two parts - its the rear or 2nd part I need to replace. The haynes manual says its quite an easy job. Well there is virtualy no access but after I got all the pipes off and removed the fixings I went to remove it - a sensor fouled on the injector rail so I removed the sensor then went to remove it again and it still fouls on the injector rail. So the only way I can see to remove it is by removing the inlet manifold - surely this is not right?

Anyone else had any experience with removing the themostat housing. The actual thermostat is quite accessible.

Cheers

[bad man working]

At worst you have to un-bolt and lift the fuel rail up a bit (just watch the injector “O”rings when you put them back in)

[tstolber]

Hi

Thanks for your reply. I was a bit hesitant about doing this as I didn't want to upset anything.
I had another go at it tonight and got it off. I just used two locknuts on the most accessible stud and extracted it. This allowed me to rotate the housing enough to get it past the rail. Still though what a STUPID design!

I guess this rarely needs to be changed.

I haven't heard or read of anyone else having this problem though and I would be very surprised if the haynes manual had missed this.