Continuing work on the cooling system, I finished the install of the lower Boig Cool Tube. I initially had some trouble figuring out how to get it aligned correctly. After trading some PM's and having a nice phone conversation with Bob Boig, he explained that he leaves the hoses long intentionally so they can be trimmed to get the best fit. Here's what the engine-side hose looked like at first. That wasn't going to work too well:



After some judicious trimming, here's how it ended up. I'm happy with the clearance to the steering shaft now:





The radiator-end hose was long on both ends and also needed some trimming to fit well. Here's how it looks now:



The middle of the tube ran pretty close to the x-brace, so I decided to take a short length of radiator hose and slip it in place and cover it with some of the abrasion guard sleeve that Ford puts on their hoses:



Here's what the whole assembly looked like after much fitting and trimming, before being installed for good:



The front bend of the metal tube still runs pretty close to the sway bar. I trimmed the rubber hose at the radiator outlet as much as I could to get the whole assembly to shift forward as much as possible, but there's not a lot of clearance there (maybe 1/16" to 1/8"). I don't think this will be an issue, but for good measure I put a section of abrasion guard sleeve over the metal tube in that area, and will keep an eye on it once I'm driving to make sure I won't have any problems down the road.



Many thanks to Bob Boig for taking the time to go over it all with me and make sure it all fits properly.