Club 80-90 Forums

The Bishop wrote:They say that air cooled engines are really oil cooled engines.

Surely, air flowing though an oil radiator is going to cool the oil and in turn the metal. I can't see that there is any debate about that.

I am sure it will cool my engine. I suppose the question is, do I need to cool my engine, after all , they say you need to warm it up in the morning.

No, you have also an extra litre of oil in the sump over and air cooled 2ltr, and more than some more modern cars which run hotter with lean burn engines with turbos still without remote oil coolers.

Its not exactly expensive to fit an external cooler with a stat, and it does regulate the oil temp much better. I have sandwich plate costing about 12.00 with AN8 fittings and about 12 inches of tube running to an 80 degrees mocal stat then oil lines running to a 12 inch by 4 inch by 1/1/4 cooler mounted next to my final drive in the air flow. The cooler has a fan mounted on it which I can turn on from the dash but have never needed to yet. Infact I may remove the fan to improve the airflow into the cooler. With the oil between 90 and 100 degrees my oil pressure at tickover is approx 25-30Psi. Cruising at 55mph it rises to about 60 Psi. Previous to the cooler being fitted After a hard climb or run the tickover pressure could be down to 12-15 Psi which is still OK but it shows the effect of the heat.
Total cost cooler £30.00
stat £38.00
s/plate £12.00
Hoses/fittings £30.00 Plus a few bits of metal to make mounting brackets. £110.00 Ebay is great for these sort of bits avoiding too much chinese cheese along the way.

123-jn wrote:Its not exactly expensive to fit an external cooler with a stat, and it does regulate the oil temp much better. I have sandwich plate costing about 12.00 with AN8 fittings and about 12 inches of tube running to an 80 degrees mocal stat then oil lines running to a 12 inch by 4 inch by 1/1/4 cooler mounted next to my final drive in the air flow. The cooler has a fan mounted on it which I can turn on from the dash but have never needed to yet. Infact I may remove the fan to improve the airflow into the cooler. With the oil between 90 and 100 degrees my oil pressure at tickover is approx 25-30Psi. Cruising at 55mph it rises to about 60 Psi. Previous to the cooler being fitted After a hard climb or run the tickover pressure could be down to 12-15 Psi which is still OK but it shows the effect of the heat.
Total cost cooler £30.00
stat £38.00
s/plate £12.00
Hoses/fittings £30.00 Plus a few bits of metal to make mounting brackets. £110.00 Ebay is great for these sort of bits avoiding too much chinese cheese along the way.

Do you happen to have any photos of your setup please. Would be interested to see it. Thanks.

I did take photos when I put it in but have had camera trouble ever since and the last time I tried I could not get the photos off the card . I will see if there is anything I can do.

123-jn wrote:I did take photos when I put it in but have had camera trouble ever since and the last time I tried I could not get the photos off the card . I will see if there is anything I can do.

That would be much appreciated, if possible.

So I have the stock cooler sandwich on mine, but it's not connected to anything. We're these connected into the existing cooling system somehow (thus helping with early warm up), and if so, how?

I figure if it's there I might as well use it, especially if it's just a case of hose mods.

Yes they plumbed into the cooling system, there is an outlet on the waterpump for cooler equipped vans feeding the plate. The outflow goes into a stub on the side of the thermostat housing. I guess you could probably plumb it in anywhere you fancy. It does far more to warm up the oil than it does to cool it down.
http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/123-j ... e%20cooler" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (please note my cooler is now double the size of this one shown and I have an inline stat set at 80 degrees)
Running temps of my 1.9 auto are now usually 80-100 (avg 90) Although LLanberis pass and cross foxes pass still take it to about 102 on a real hot day.

I've got an oil cooler waiting to go in with the 2.1DJ that I'm going to put in with my old style cooling system. I've got brackets for mounting it in the front, like this:



...and I've got a thermostatic sandwich plate.

I'm interested to hear from anyone who's done this to find out what route they took with the hydraulic hoses from the sandwich plate to the cooler. Anyone got any pictures?

Those brackets look the business, are they the same as the ones you have, if so, who supplies them in the uk?

Yes, I bought the brackets with the cooler, second hand from a member on here. I think he said he bought them from Busschmiede, here. No idea whether there's a UK seller I'm afraid.

Thanks for the link, the image shows that they are simply a bent piece of steel with a hose clamp fitted, Standard part off the shelf whilst the bracket would be easy enough to bend in a vice. Looks good, did I say that already?

Yes, very simple item, but they fit perfectly and hold the cooler firmly. There are pros and cons wherever the cooler goes. The drawback with this front mounted position is the long pipes, which are not only a bit pricey but will also hold an extra litre of oil all by themselves. Once it's mounted there though you get the benefit of the full-on air flow, and also the radiator fan when stationary.

In another thread, syncroandy wrote: On the oil plumbing, could you use steel lines instead of hose, they'd save space ? I used some ally pipe in the chargecooler plumbing on my current TDI and it worked well.

I still haven't fitted my front-mounted oil cooler. My engine build is temporarily on hold, but I want to get this oil cooler in and working before swapping the engines over. What's holding me back at the moment is the pipework. It's a long (double) run from the sandwich plate to the cooler, and the cheaper hose seems marginal at 100 degree working temp. The better hose, with professionally crimped fittings, is going to be expensive, and doesn't give me the option for trial-and-error with the lengths and the routing.

I saw Syncroandy's comment above in another thread, and it set me thinking. How would steel pipes connect to the screw fittings? Would a swaged end and a short piece of hose work, or are there fittings that are designed for fixing to metal pipes? Is there any reason I couldn't use 15mm copper, rather than steel? It seems like it might provide better corrosion resistance, and would be easier for a home mechanic like me to work with - with a rented pipe bender I reckon I could make a decent job of shaping copper pipes. And with an engine on the bench at the moment I could probably make quite an accurate fit around the underside of the engine. I could even solder sections together to make it easier to create the complete run. But swaging the ends and/or fixing the fittings might not be so easy for me.

123-jn wrote:I was happy without a cooler until I fitted an oil temp gauge. You then find that your oil temp runs at around 90 degrees on a pleasant amble about but as soon as you throttle up on a motorway it flies up to 110 and on hot days up inclines up to 135 degrees. Although engine oil especially newer synthetic oils are happy past this I am told that it is right on the limit for mineral oils.

Agree with this , stock DJ oil cooler just fitted on my DG with 80 deg stat and oil temp has not gone over 85 on a hot day this week with a 400 mile drive at 65mph, this has in turn kept oil pressure up.

Without a temp and pressure guage fitted and without driving with and without stock oil cooler I don't see how you could comment on what they do.

As for being an oil warmer the oil temp doesn't get up any quicker IMO

https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.p ... r#p8073022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Reading your post you only fitted the little sandwich cooler between the oil filter and engine block?