ABZ breather hoses

[Nick Jones]

It's a 96 4.2 (32v ABZ) with 137k miles recorded. The back of the engine is very oily and smells fumey.

This was why


Presumably the original hoses - or their remains
The left hand hose was merely hanging. The one on the right was so bad I couldn't find it at first! The connection to the throttle body had been blanked off with a bottle top and some duct tape and if I hadn't known there was meant to be one I'd have missed it.

Getting the remains off was not easy - I ended up making a special tool - an 18" length of thinwall 1/2" pipe with one squashed and bent into a short, shallow hook. With the proper new pipes costing about 10% of what I paid for the car each, I wasn't going that route. Instead I got some 18mm nitrile hose and after fiddling about with the routing for a bit decided that I needed an elbow to make it neat and kink-free


Wiggle it into place and clamp with a couple of tie wraps, job done on the left hand bank


Right hand bank was similar except much harder to fit - took ages to get the pipe on the stub under the manifold and no way of getting even a tie wrap on it. It's pretty well wedged in though and can only be an improvement on what was there!


I'd already replaced the link pipe across the front with a simple hose - which somebody had done before but using EPDM heater hose which really didn't like the oil and had fallen apart.

Breather system sorted now hopefully!

Nick