So the t-belt and t-stat are in, and I need to load up the coolant. I think I know what's up but I can't find the bleeder that is not next to the heater core. Anyone?

 

It's just to the left of the archives.

 

It is located rearward of the vacuum actuated heater valve which is mounted inline in the upper heater hose. Just after the valve you will find a molded section of hose that has a plastic slotted screw in the top of the hose. Just unscrew this screw a couple of turns, don't remove it. It has a channel cut up the side of the threads, so it will purge air and coolant just fine.

 

Not that one the OTHER bleeder.

 

The other one(s) are located at the back of the engine in the metal coolant pipe that comes out the back of the cylinder head(s).

 

Oh. Thanks.

 

Had to weigh in since I replaced my t-belt a little while back and went through this whole coolant system hassle. My main problem throughout the t-belt procedure was a lack of detailed instructions in the Bentley manual -- along with a lack of pictures/photos. What I'm seeing here, as well as in the Bentley manual, is a lot of helpful information; the problem is that there are no photos identifying the "small plastic cap on the right side under the plenum cover" or showing the "10 mm allen nut beneath the exhaust pipe on the driver's side" (for example). I will state for the record that the advice I received in this forum was far more helpful to me than the manual was - I only refer to it now for diagnostic codes - but even at that, a picture speaks a thousand words. During the whole process I was just hoping I could get my hands on someone showing me what this looked like, or where that is actually located, or which hose is the one they're talking about. Good luck with this - my guess is that you'll need it.

 

How many times do we see people here ask questions about how to do something, and then they either don't listen, or they do something completely different, and then they come back on saying how this happened and that happened, and they got this reading, and they've now broken that.....or they did only one step out of 3 or 5 that were listed and want to know what to do next.

It's almost an every day event.

For example, in this case, when I tell you the heater valve is located on the driver's (left) side of the heater box...it's in line in the upper heater hose....the bleeder valve is in a molded hose just after the heater valve....how much clearer does it get?

Maybe we can do what most other forums do. When someone asks a question, we just tell them, go read your Bentley, search the forum archives, and the FAQ's. Friendly huh?

Or maybe for those who can't read, won't read, don't want to get up from the keyboard long enough to actually go work on their car and follow the directions given, one of us could dedicate, oh....say 30hrs a week to making "how to" movies, editing them, buying a server, hosting them there, and then fielding all the questions he gets about how to do what he's just shown a movie of?

Fun stuff.

Here's your requested photos of the heater valve. These took me the amount of time it takes to open the hood, lift up the corner of the plastic tray and snap the photo. (of course there was the additional time to load them onto the hard drive, resize them, adjust the exposure so they were as easy to see as possible, at text, upload them to the picture poster, write all this, and then add the html links.

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/57225/heater_valve_location.jpg">
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/57225/heater_valve.jpg">.

 

I absolutely see what you mean and for the most part the advice I've come across has been extremely helpful so please don't take personal offense. This forum is a valuable resource because of people like you who take the time to make it user-friendly. I was mostly referring to the Bentley manual which utilizes illustrations depicting things from a "macro" view point (and I've sent the folks at Bentley a bunch of emails listing my complaints). Rarely do their illustrations give a wide-angle view so the reader can see things from a "relative" point of view. There is no doubt that the points you make are valid; I've just been very frustrated at times because I was brought up on Haynes and Chilton manuals which, in my estimation, would be more helpful to me personally than the Bentley CD is. And, by the way, thanks a bunch for the pictures - I greatly appreciate your efforts and can only hope other readers feel the same way. I wish I had helpful info to offer but until I do I'll have to remain more of a "taker" and less of a "giver."

 

You have to remember that Bentley Manuals are designed for factory trained techs to use. They are not set up at all for the average DIYer. That's why the info is so basic and usually pretty vague....because Bentley expects you to know 80% of what's going on with that particular car model.

I agree, having used vintage Haynes and Chilton, that they produce a much more user and DIYer friendly book. Unfortunately, the Haynes version for our cars is not very good, and doesn't address our engines and other stuff. Consider that the Bentley books for our cars are 30lbs, 3 volumes, 3" thick. The Haynes is one book, 1" thick.