87 S4 Automatic. While going through the electrical pm work I found the cooling shield was badly broken, and everything covered in oil. Have stopped all the oil leaks so thought it would be best to clean things up and replace this cover. Ordered and received the cover, then realized there is a gasket that I didn't order. What about the cooling hose that attaches to the shield? Haven't been able to find a picture of how that is attached on both ends. Is it really needed?

 

Hi the hose your talking about is routed up into the driver side fenderin front of the tire and behind the fender well divider, it has a round collar that has the temperature sensor in it for the HVAC system to tell outside air temp, the other side of this collar should have another piece of tubing that loops downwards to keep water out the other end connects to your alternator this sucks cleaner water free air past the temp sensor and into the alternator to provide cooling , if you leave it off the temp sensor will probably read higher if its warm out and if you dont connect the tube to the alternator then the alternator will be sucking in dirty air and possibly water if you go in a big enough puddle, so you could fry the electronics , I went to a hose shop the kind that makes hoses for trucks and got a 4 foot piece and replaced all of my hose as it was oil soaked and had wear holes in it, I think i paid about 15.00 for the hose, Stan

 

Tony has a nice writeup on his page here: http://members.rennlist.com/v1uhoh/alternat.htm

The way it fits in the wheelhouse ought to be something like this(78, may be slightly different):

 

I replaced my cooling hose with some 3 inch aluminum clothes dryer vent hose from Home Depot. Cost me about $5.00 if I remember right.