Heater Hose Hack-aux water pump by-pass

[shogun]

this was once written by Fred back in 2005, but very good info for emergency situations like we had today with an E32 Alpina B12, same problem = neck of aux water pump was broken while the wife of my wrenching buddy drove to the kindergarden to pick up their child. Luckily it was only a few miles away and we were quickly there.

"I have bad luck with coolant hoses. They always seem to bust on me when I am going full speed on the freeway.
My latest incident involved one of the heater hoses. The culprit was intake hose from the engine block to the aux water pump. The neck on the pump broke off which dumped the coolant in a hurry.
After a tow to my house, I called around for a replacement but couldn't find one. Since I needed the car I hacked up plug for the hose since it was still in good shape. I used a 1/2 steel pipe nipple (it has an outside diameter of 0.8 inches) with a cap screwed on one end. I filed the threads down on the end that I put in the hose since they were pretty sharp. The same hose clamp sealed the deal.
I have driven about 200 miles with this plug and it hasn't leaked a bit.
This would be a nice fix for any of the heater hoses that break and I intend to keep the plug in my car from now on."

another longer version:
One day, I pulled I came home from work and pulled into the driveway. I turned the engine off and got out to go inside. I immediately noticed smoke pouring from the engine compartment. Visions of multi-thousand dollar repair bills started dancing in my head as I carefully opened the hood. I was mildly relieved when flames were not ungulfing the engine. I then caught the unmistakable odor of burning coolant. I poked around the engine compartment to see if I could spot the leak. For those of you who don't own V12's, there is not alot of room to see anything so this was harder than it sounds. There was only leakage on the driver's side so I was able to pinpoint the leak to a blown heater hose. I was somewhat relieved since a new hose shouldn't cost that much (although leave it up to BMW to charge $100 for a rubber hose).
The heater valve has three hoses in it, two to the heater core and one to the engine block. I was this last one that was the problem (thankfully as you will find out later). Since I could see both ends of the hose, I tried to replace it without taking anything apart. This attempt quickly failed.
I figured I had to remove the heater valve to get more room. This is easier said than done. The valve lies under a bracket that supports the positive battery lug and some wiring. This bracket is attached to a larger one that houses 3 diagnostic plugs. By the way, the Bently manual doesn't mention anything about any of this!
First remove the cover from the heater valve. It pops off, but requires so much force I was sure I was going to break it. This will expose the heater valve and its mounting nuts. Go ahead the remove the nuts now and see how impossible it is to remove the valve, keeping in mind it has the auxillary water pump attached to it!
Next, remove the diagnotisc plug bracket. It is attached by two bolts. One is an odd plastic nut. I stripped mine pretty bad taking it off. I have no earthly idea why they would use this kind of fastener here. The second nut is near the positive terminal. You will have to remove the terminal's side cover. This requires a fair amount of force, I used a screwdriver to help it along (kind of like removing a cake from a cake pan) thinking I was about to break it (this seems to happen a lot). With that bracket removed, you can now move the wiring out of the way a bit. I also removed the wiring harness bracket on the heater valve bracket so I could move the hose.
You should now remove the hoses going into the heater valve and the one going to the aux. pump. They should be fairly easy to remove since you have some freedom of movement. You don't need to remove the short hose that connects the valve to the aux. pump. Be carefull you don't drop a hose clamp. You might also want to mark the hoses before removing them.
Now, removing the valve is just a matter of working around all the wires, metal and hoses to get it out. It helped me to move it towards the engine a bit and back it out.
Now I just yanked the faulty hose out and put the new one in.

pic link removed as no longer working, see in my post below the pic

[shogun]

for emergency cases when the plastic neck of the auxiliary water pump is broken

Pics and text by 95-540sport Bimmer Boy from a 1995 E34 540, same parts used on the E32:

Here is a little walk through to solve the issue until you can replace the pump.

You can see the overview of the lines here.
http://i1344.photobucket.com/albums/...psc6e26e7c.jpg
You will be bypassing the water pump, in my pics it is the old dry looking line in the center(yes now that i look at it it needs to be replaced)

Remove this line that comes into the center of the pump from the intake

http://i1344.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2fd27d12.jpg
And put it in place of this line that goes into the heater valves from the pump.(the old looking line at the bottom of the pic)

http://i1344.photobucket.com/albums/...psa9ffd176.jpg
You are taking the line in the lower left of this image and replacing the line above it just to the right (the center line in the three line diagonal)

http://i1344.photobucket.com/albums/...ps092892b9.jpg
I hope this helps

[corbinstein0]

I drove for an entire year that way....... worked fine.
I have removed my pump entirely and now have a "T' there with a couple of valves installed. Works fine....
it's ugly but works.

[m60power]

Good info shogun. I too drove like this for awhile in my 540 until I got an aux water pump. Heat still worked but it took longer to get hot air.

[shogun]

As the link does not work anymore in above first post, here again, luckily I downloaded the heater hose hack pic

[unity]

Im not sure how I have mine done, but no lines are capped in any way and I have no pump installed - it broke off at the end. While I have a spare, I never got around to putting it in as it seems its not needed. After all, its only for sitting idle.

[shogun]

In case the aux water is broken (usually the connection stud breaks when brittle), you go with that hose instead of to inlet aux water pump directly to inlet heater valves, normal is from engine to aux water pump inlet, out of water pump to heater valve inlet and then out of heater valve with 2 ports to heater core. Normal set-up http://bmwe32.masscom.net/johan/wate...tervalves.html

[shogun]

Isolating the heater core from engine cooling sys http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/459398/