Help! Oil Line removal....

[Groovy911SC]

Does anyone know of any good chants, incantations, spells, hex's,or particularly good cuss words that will assist in removing the oil lines which are located in the right rear wheel well?

I am re-placing/re-routing the oil line that came with my new SSI's.

These oil lines must have been welded on when assembled at the factory.... jeeez!

Any help/tips will be appreciated!

[fireant911]

I replaced several of my oil lines and the procedure, other than brute force, that worked well for me was as follows: about a week prior to my planned disassembly I would saturate the connection with PB Blaster and then drive the car. After parking the car for the evening I would give it another dose of the PB Blaster. After this repeated treatments over several days my oil lines came apart easily (other than a busted knuckle on my hand). The lines you are trying to remove are especially troublesome due to the lack of space - I was able to open things up by removing the right rear wheel which made a tremendous amount of difference. One more trick that others may frown upon is this: I used an 18" length of oak quarter-round floor molding with a hammer to gently tap the nut on the oil line while securing any movement of the oil line itself. I think patience is the biggest key to your situation.

[ChrisBennet]

If you will be tossing the line, cut the nut with a dremel tool or cutoff wheel and then use a chisel to unscrew the nut. Put the tip of the chisel in the cut to pry open and unscrew the nut at the same time.
-Chris

[North Coast Cab]

I found the PB Blaster and repeate heat cycls helped a ton. Any wrench of appropriate size will work, but the oil line special wrench is unbelievable for tight spaces. Try removing them at the tank and engine and way up front. Then you can remove the entire asembly and remove the rest on the bench.

John

[fred cook]

I recently replace 3 of the 4 oil lines on my SC. Because of lack of access space for tools I elected to unfasten the oil lines at the end of the hard line, oil tank and at the connections to the trombone oil cooler. I wound up making a 36mm wrench by cutting the appropriate sized hex out of a piece of 3" x 16" x 1/2" thick steel. That along with a large pipewrench gave me enough leverage to unfasten the oil lines at the ends so the entire assembly could be dropped as a unit. Finally, I held the thermostat in the jaws of a 4' long pipe wrench and loosened the thermostat fittings using the homemade wrench and a hammer! Amazingly, all 4 nuts came off the themostat without stripping the threads. The bottom line is that these fittings get seriously stuck!! Being gentle will only frustrate you!

Good Luck!

Fred Cook
'80 911SC coupe

[Groovy911SC]

Thanks guys for the input!
Getting this oil line inplace is the last task I need to do before putting the engine back in the car. I've just finished the rebuild. It has taken over a year so I'm a bit anxious...
I've heard PB Blaster really works well. I'll start with that and hope I can find more patience!
Thanks again!

[CBRacerX]

Chris Bennet has it right, if it isn't a new line then just slit the nut with a dremel cut-off wheel and pry open a bit - the nut will come off with the least possible damage to the thermostat. I cut mine in two locations and it was easy, after failing with penetrant, heating/cooling and heavy torque with the correct wrenches.

Tip - use Copaslip or a similar anti-seize on the threads when you re-assemble!

Good luck -

Chris

[Superman]

Electrolytic action between the aluminum thermostat housing and the steel oil line is one of the culprits. The threads on the thermostat are easy to damage since they are fine threads. I used the actual wrench for this purpose and it was the right tool. I placed a block of wood next to the lines and thermostat to brace it so that nothing would get twisted and mangled. Penetrant (I like Maltby's). It eventually came off fine. The dremel idea is probably safest, but you would still need to be very careful not to cut into the threads on the thermostat.

[Jeff Alton]

What Chris says. Or else have a new thermostat handy...

Jeff