After months of preparation, I went ahead and changed out the surge tank in my diesel pusher with Freightliner chassis. It was definitely weeping as I had antifreeze tracks on a bracket below the tank.
This is what the surge tank looks like:
It took me far too long, over 6 hours. But I learned a trick, a trick that would have simplified the tank removal so much that I don't think it would have taken more than 3 hours if I'd known about it beforehand. Even at my working snails pace. All that was was to remove the plate between the rad and the roof. Just 3 bolts, though one is hard to get to on the side of the rad. Once loose, the plate can be pulled away from the engine compartment for access to the mounting bolts for the tank.
A real mechanic would undoubtedly have figured out how to do it much faster than I did, but the several reports by forum members I've read never mentioned that one thing that makes the job much easier.
So because of that, I'm linking my blog post about the job so anyone else who has the tank with it's propensity for leaking and early failure might learn from my experience: Surge Tank replacement article...
Let me know what you think...
This is what the surge tank looks like:
It took me far too long, over 6 hours. But I learned a trick, a trick that would have simplified the tank removal so much that I don't think it would have taken more than 3 hours if I'd known about it beforehand. Even at my working snails pace. All that was was to remove the plate between the rad and the roof. Just 3 bolts, though one is hard to get to on the side of the rad. Once loose, the plate can be pulled away from the engine compartment for access to the mounting bolts for the tank.
A real mechanic would undoubtedly have figured out how to do it much faster than I did, but the several reports by forum members I've read never mentioned that one thing that makes the job much easier.
So because of that, I'm linking my blog post about the job so anyone else who has the tank with it's propensity for leaking and early failure might learn from my experience: Surge Tank replacement article...
Let me know what you think...
