Coolant rec tank replaced, F/C, 330 HP CAT Not easy!

[FIRE UP]

Gang,
We've got an '04 Itasca Horizon with the 330 CAT on a Freightliner Revolution Chassis. The coolant recovery tank is a plastic one, sitting on top of, and just to the right of the radiator. While it's in a position for convenience for topping off the radiator/coolant, it's a fairly entailed job for R&R.

Long story short, I thought I'd try and do the whole job from the outside of the coach. Well, it wasn't happening. You can do most of it but, there's (4) hoses on that little tank. One in front, coming off the neck of the radiator cap, two smaller ones coming off the back, on the top side and one more larger one, coming off the lower back side, about an inch in diameter. There's two bolts that are easy to get to and two that are considerably harder. One, in the rear, on the right, as you're looking at the radiator, is impossible to get at from the outside of the coach.

So, that leads me to the inside of the coach, tore apart the whole bed, removed the upper engine hatch and from there, you can access the rear of that tank, hoses and sensor. On our, you have to be a bit of a contortionist to get to the rear bolt, almost against the right side wall, as you're looking at the radiator from the rear of the coach.

One more thing, I siphoned out all I could through the neck of the tank. But, there's a large lower section of that tank, that you can't see from the radiator side, that holds around a gallon of coolant. The problem, there's the large hose that has to be removed to remove the tank and, when you pull that hose, you might as well open the flood gates 'cause there's no way to catch all that coolant.

Since I was going to trash the tank anyway, I simply drilled a large 1" hole in the top of the tank, just above where that one inch hose attaches and siphoned what's left of the coolant through that hole. I got about 99% of it. So, if your tank is in sad shape, crazed with age and cracks, they're about $131.00 out the door at our local Freightliner dealer. And, if you're a DIY kind of guy, you're far better off getting it done ahead of time so it doesn't have a chance to go bad when you're in the long climb up a hot grade in the middle of no where. Just a suggestion here.
Scott

[FIRE UP]

Sorry guys, I didn't finish reading all the other answers to my other post on this subject. Yes sir it was a pain to R&R.
Scott