75ZT Community

I have read about the difficulty that comes with refitting the hose clips on the heater matrix. Can someone explain exactly where the difficulty lies?

First they aren't hose clips as such. There is a joint in the metal pipes with an O ring and a special clip that pulls the ends of the two parts together. Some people have had difficulty I understand but when I did mine I didn't. I seem to remember I used new O rings so maybe that was why. It's important to seat theses clips correctly so they do indeed pull the parts together and maybe that's harder than it should be. On later cars, the join was a project drive deletion so check you have it. Otherwise a right pain to get the matrix out.

Thanks Duncan, my car was built in Sep 2003 so probably won't have the joint. Won't be doing anyway until warmer weather is upon us.

The joint was a very late deletion from what I have seen, certainly still there on my late 53 car. Also the joint was a double cone type with 2-part clamp, similar to the early Mini exhaust manifold connector. No gasket or 'O' ring and a right royal pain in the bum to connect when you can really get only one hand to it.
An 05 car that I changed the matrix on, I had to cut the pipes and join with some suitable diameter hose and jubilee clips.