E53 mystery

[Henn28]

Of all the overly wrought, needlessly complex and outright mysterious parts and pieces that make up the E53, the cooling system seems to take the cake. To be fair, I’m sure a team of engineers was really proud of their work after they finished, but it really seems more like they just threw a mess of hoses, valves, and extra pumps at the car and took their lunch break.

Two pieces in particular stump me.

The rear cooling manifold seems to come in several different designs. Case in point, RealOEM shows my 02 4.4i with a manifold that has three in/out ports (pn 11531437493) however the actual unit from my old motor has the usual 2, on top of the manifold. Where would the third port off the left side of the manifold even go or come from? Did they forget something critical the first time around? I bought an eBay unit for my new motor and dumb luck provided the same piece, rather than the one with the extra port.

The prize for silly design though has to go to the water cooled alternator. Not the fact that it is water cooled, although that adds a lot of complexity and sources of future pain, but the fact that at least some (mine for one) have the rear coolant outlet port plugged! Water comes in, but can’t get out. Wedged between the block and headers can’t really provide adequate skin cooling to the coolant around the alternator, can it? I think on other production years a line went from the alternator to the transmission cooler maybe, but not on mine. I’d be happy to add it, but don’t see a similarly plugged port on my transmission cooler.