Just thought i would try and help out as much as possible as there seems to be a lot of trouble with the coolant hoses underneath the inlet manifold.Already took the engine out which wasn't too much of a job to replace what appeared to be jubilee clips which where not doing up tight enough. After doing this i put the engine back in only to find yet more coolant streaming out of the inaccessible areas.....brilliant!
I decided to have a crack at taking just the manifold off to hopefully gain enough access to the rear. Doing this was a bit fiddly but all in all took a couple hours and not too much swearing. There was a few things that i found with people saying that you cannot take it off without the engine out, and that you have to take the plenum off and various other things. I found that i could take off the inlet manifold off straight from the head and it was a bit of a faf but was achievable.
Undoing the top nuts on the manifold is obviously the easy part. The "y" bracket at the back of the engine obviously got in the way so after a bit of doing this was moved out of the way towards to the passenger side. I couldn't remove mine completely until the inlet manifold was off. I was able to use a mixture of a flexible ratchet spanner and normal spanners going both through the throttle bodies as well as my hand all the way round the back for some of them. I understand that it is tight and tricky and i font have the smallest of hands or arms so it is achievable with just some dropping of spanners in the process.....I found it easier to undo the nut and then keep a magnet beside the nut to try and catch both the nut and the washer from the depths of behind the engine. Next came the removal of various hoses and plug....There are 4 hoses and 2 plugs that need to be removed from the inlet manifold...not including petrol and small vacuums....i mean 4 hoses that are a bugger to remove.. From the passenger side, the first is a larger breather type hose which can be removed from up behind the idle control valve. The next is a smaller coolant hose which i found easier to remove from the solid pipe on the engine. The next is another breather style hose which i managed to use a pair of pliers round the back and then a screwdriver through the two throttle bodies to push the clip and the hose down and off. Then i removed the last small bore coolant hose directly from the manifold at the drivers side. I think by this point the manifold had enough movement to be able to come off of the studs and towards me sliglty to remove the last hose. Then the 2 plus one orange and purple which allowed me to finally take it away from the car. There are a couple of vacuum lines which go to catch cans and various other things but there not really the problem which people come up against!...
I was then able to undo two pieces of the breather and coolant, one had 2 10mm and other 2 12mm from recollection. This then gave me access to the 2 main coolant hoses which have annoyed me so much...At this point i would advise people to do the right thing and change them all...for good quality hoses...good quality clips and then you will be able to sleep easier. Im sure that a vast majority of this has all be wrong but this seemed to be what worked for me! Apologises's for any inaccuracies but hopeful the pictures will give people an understanding about how to achieve getting it off!
