How do you change a radiator in a Peugeot 306 TD?

Answer 1

306 1.9 td 1998 R reg.

Ok, so I did mine today and what a pig it was! After much scratching about I think this is the easiest way.

1 Drain system from bottom of rad, should be a drain off there.

2 Remove trim behind bonnet latch, should be one bolt and 4 plastic re-usable clips.

3 Remove air intake on rhs, bolt is 10mm and a little fiddly to get to but makes it much easier later on.

4 Remove expansion tank cap and then the tank itself, including bracket which is held on with 3 torx bolts.

5 Assuming the handbrake is already on, remove driverside front wheel.

6 Remove wheel arch liner, its in 2 bits and is held on with plastic clips which again can be re-used if removed carefully.

7 Remove screen wash bottle, unscrew neck from under bonnet first, then two 10mm nuts hold tank in place. Undo wire connection from motor and remove the clear piping to the washer jets, marking their positions as one is front and the other is rear!

8 Now you should be able to get to the bottom hose which is held on by two clips, very important as they keep hose from touching cam belt!! It travels from the back of the engine block to the bottom connection on the rad. Dont remove it from the rad yet.

9 In the engine bay remove the other hoses from the rad, should be easy enough with a set of pump pliers. I found it best to completely remove the top hose.

10 Now the rad should have just the bottom hose connected. It should be possible to remove the rad with it connected, but two pairs of hands make it much easier, one removing the rad and the other feeding the hose out of the wheel arch.

11 With the rad removed you should be able to remove the bottom hose relatively easily, but take care. You will find an O ring inside, which is likely to be damaged. I actually picked up two from Euro car Parts incase I damaged one.

12 Inside the bottom hose you will see it has a slit which lines up with a lug in the rad itself. It makes things much easier if you use some vaseline or baby oil around the O ring now as it needs firm pressure to locate it properly.

13 To be sure of it not leaking I now blanked off the other outlets and filled the rad with water. First time the O ring had not seated properly so it was worth checking!

14 Now, as usual to a Haynes manual refitting was the reverse of removal! The hardest bit is getting the hose back through the hole in the bulkhead, the rest is just a matter of reconnecting everything you removed.

15 The last thing I did was refill the system. I did not use a "header tank", I simply raised the filler tank above the enging block and filled it that way, running the engine as I filled. A quick run around the block to warm the engine up, all that was needed was a little extra top up and to ensure water was running without air a few squeezes of the top hose seemed to do the trick.

Like I said, this is what I found to be the best way of doing it, and yes my car does have aircon too. You may get away without removing the air intake but it really makes things so much easier.