LR3 4.4 AJ v8 complete thermostat housing replacement

[robertofollia]

Dear all.
My LR3 needs new thermostat due to a leak in the bypass hose. looks coming from the plastic pipe which might eventually break

1st 'stat replaced in 2010 at 40K miles.
Now it's turn of the 2nd, at 120K miles.
I have just one question.
Can you replace the whole housing (including the square outlet bolted to the engine) not removing inlet manifold?
I don't want to mess with intake leaks even if I renew all gaskets and o rings. This manifols is made of cheapo plastic.
I mean, disconnect all hoses, air cleaner intake pipes.
Remove fan
Remove throttle body if necessary
remove front thermostat housing the one that has the thermostat itself and bolts to the heads with 2 bolts each head
Then working in a weird way to fit your hands and socket +torx bit in between (I've got small hands for my age and size-size 9 for gloves) remove the outlet.
Separate new outlet from thermostat.
Bolt new outlet
Smear a bit of silicon grease in thermostat body and pipes o-rings
With the utmost care insert the thermostat body and pipe in the outlet.
Bolt the thermostat body to heads.
Reassemble rest of stuff, refill and bleed.
Is that feasible?
best regards and thank you

 

[Howski]

No need to pull the fan. I’ve done it twice myself without pulling anything on intake manifold. Throttle body is as far back as I pulled off. Some of the bolts are tricky to get to so take your time. You’ll need a universal joint socket adapter and various sized extensions. Otherwise pretty straightforward

 

[best4x4]

I've done it with the intake intact. I did it with the fan in place, but I did remove the TB and the elbow. Small 1/4 ratchet and misc extensions are your friends getting to the 4 bolts on the elbow. Besides that not hard at all.

 

[robertofollia]

Hi,
Thank you all for your input. Yes, this is the roue I will go, the one you suggest: Remove TB and elbow.
Only problem I see is the gaskets (these metal sheet gaskets do no seem to be reusable both TB to elbow and EGR to TB elbow), and the same can be said for the green rubber intake elbow one.
And in my location (Spain) only thermostat housing is in stock. No one has the gaskets . Will change the TB heater hose as well.
Best regards and thank you
Robert

 

[robertofollia]

Hi,
finally I followed your route. Took less than I imagined. Everything came out easily. housing had been changed earlier in 2010 judging from date stamped on components
The pipe outlet from heads was past its sell by date. The locating pegs just broke with finger pressure and one of them had dissolved/melted.
The leak was found: faulty o-ring in coolant temp sensor.
Happy to have renewed it completely. Found some not tight TB to manifold bolts, which could have caused some lean codes in the past and not so smooth idling when warming up.
But what really puzzled me was some kinda chalky residue inside thermostat outlet pipe. was almost 10 millimeter thick,
Don't have pic from that, only from the head outlet pipe.

The coolant had always been renewed every 2 years since car's build date, and never did more than 20K miles
Best regards