Lower oil cooler hose position

[wwheeler]

I am putting the oil cooler back in on my '68 W111. I am trying to position the lower hose where it goes into the oil cooler. That end has a double 90* bend and is "Z" shaped. The question is does the hose go under the sway bar and come back up to the cooler fitting or does the hose go above the sway bar?

Right now the hose goes below the sway bar and there are two problems I see. 1)The hose touches the sway bar and I put an 1/8" rubber pad between the two. 2) The hose is somewhat exposed to road debris on the underside going under the bar.

Just wanting to know what the other W111 guys on the site have on their cars. Thank you for your help!!! 

[280SE Guy]

Wallace,

Not from a W111 but from the W108. I don't think the difference in the number of doors will have any effect on the routing of the oil cooler line:



Regards,

Bob

[jacovdw]

I concur with Bob.

The bottom oil cooler line as well as the line from the automatic gearbox should be routed above the sway bar.
Even on my W114 230.6 the configuration is as described.

Not a good idea for these lines to rub against the sway bar as eventual fatigue can cause them to rupture and you may be in for a very expensive engine/autobox repair job.
Not to mention the mess that you will have to clean up as well.

On another note, the condition of your engine mounts also deserve a mention. If your mounts are bad, then also allow some space above the sway bar for the hoses.
I have recently replaced the engine mountings on my 114 and found that the left hand oil cooler hose from the automatic transmission had rubbed against the sway bar (see attached pics) due to the sagged mountings.

Luckily caught this in time...

[wwheeler]

I went back and tried to manuver the line over the sway bar and no luck. The trans lines are above the bar though.

There are two differeneces on my oil cooler. My drain plug is on the bottom pointing straight down (not at an angle) and the hose fitting on the cooler is actually higher than what it looks like on Bob's. So the cooler is different but not sure if that is significant. The hose is a factory MB replacement so maybe it is different than the original?

If I tried to place the hose above the bar, the "Z" shaped tubing either rammed into the power steering pump bracket or the parking brake lever on the other side. There's just not enough room on my 111 for the hose/tube to go that way. The other thing is the bracket that secures the oil cooler pipe coming from the oil filter unit. It projects the pipe downward on top of the upper oil pan in such a way that it is more in-line with going UNDER the sway bar. If position the hose OVER the sway bar, it puts a sharp bend in the hose where it connects to the pipe. The hose/tubing lines up better under the sway bar, but my two concerns well...concern me. It seems like this might be an early 280 SE issue as maybe it was changed later on.

By the way, I just replaced the motor mounts when I did this last project. The hose doesn't actually rub on the sway bar, but the tubing does. Since both the oil cooler and the sway bar are mounted to the frame, there shouldn't be much movement between the two. Maybe because the mounts are new, I am now just noticing this problem?

[wwheeler]

Concerning the lower oil cooler hose, I may have reversed the upper and lower. I had originally installed the hose with a "Z" fitting on one end as the lower hose. Since then, I have seen a few pictures with cars of my configuration that have that hose as the upper hose (see attached). If this is the case, then the lower hose has a straight fitting which would go directly over the top of the sway bar. That would resolve the problem.

I believe this is only applicable to late 67-early 69 HIGH grille 280 SE W111. The low grille models have a wider radiator and therefore the oil cooler is further to the side and requires different hose arrangement. The 250 SE doesn't have the same oil cooler mounted to the side of the radiator I believe.

Does anybody have one of these cars that can tell me what is original?

Thanks for the help!