Club 80-90 Forums

A blanking plate for off-road use, might make sense*. Or as you say a heavy grille. I can see that dust would clag it all up pretty quick, and if it then turned wet or you waded up to the sills (Not unusual ) then that'd be mud, but could all be washed out gently (the thin ally fins on radiators do not like pressure washers or soapy brushes, they bend and block the rad).

* Never had the oil buzzer on off-road, and the speed is not enough to cool an intercooler anyway, unless its got a fan. So a quick-fit blanking plate might be my choice in that position. 1/8" ally plate sort of thing

But climbing rock steps could take it out altogether, or prevent a clean climb, if you do that sort of thing.

toomanytoys wrote:HI Si, nice to see you are back.. little one and mum doing well?

I am after a cooler kit for my syncro (and the velle, but that aint on the road!!)
As mine is a doka, the air duct doesnt exist.. so a front mounted one is a good option, bigger oil pump? (wbx rememeber) But have considered cutting a hole in the side panel/opening the existing louvres a bit, for an oil cooler with a fan and temp switch on it..

Not going to bother with the wbx yet, maybe in the future, dunno, it all seems a bit of a faff of those 'orrible things.

I have been advised to steer clear of fans, if your going to do it then do it right and do it once, hence me running pipes to the front.

Incidentally, the first "kit" was ordered today and should be with me on the morrow, I then have to find a sensible way of mounting it to add to the kits I am going to sell. I ended up with a 25 row 235mm wide cooler with thermostatic sandwich plate.

Kit should come out at less than £300, the cost without delivery and brackets is in the region of £275 already without me doing any work with the brackets, any cable ties etc..

Have a look here for some oil and inter cooler stuff!
(www.syncro-bernd-jaeger.de)
Sorry dont know how to do the link thing.

Not going to bother with the wbx yet, maybe in the future, dunno, it all seems a bit of a faff of those 'orrible things.

Yeah, but some of sicko#s love em and like me, cannot change it legally..
Anyway the sandwich plate should still fit, same water/oil cooler isnt it?

Yep, fan and louvres would be more work and hassle for sure.....

Parts arrived today, all looks in order, gunna try to get it fitted through the week.
Luckily, VW must have known what I would do in the future and left me some factory holes that line up exactly where I wanted to drill for some brackets, another brucey bonus!

Would turbo lag not be a major issue if you had the intercooler up the front? Long pipes and all that. Granted the air would be pretty damn cold when its back.

Subject matter has changed to oil coolers... no-one would run pipes to front with an intercooler (I hope), too large anyway. Lag would increase but main problem would be the pressure losses exceeding the density increase.

Re: Diesel oil cooler ideas

A few pics showing one way of putting an oil cooler in a Doka or Soka

Mk 1 Gti cooler wrapped and shrouded in 3mm dural plate



Trial fit without cooler side shrouds - a bit tight, esp. the pipes, but it just goes


10" Rover Mini 1300 rad cooling fan is cut into tail-light compartment floor below, exhausting (as was cutting the hole) downwards . Again, tight, but final fit very nice... not cowled/shrouded but blades at same level as hole, which is a close fit.

Idea is that whole duct from side-grille down to cooler is sealed, to keep hot engine bay air from feeding cooler. Then all other routes of air entry to tail-light compartment are sealed, so fresh air to fan 'has' to come through cooler matrix and shrouds - lots of thick heatsink ally plate too.



Final compartment sealing not finished yet, but gave it a quick run up the bypass tonight - no temp gauge yet but there's sure some hot air being exhausted underneath by that fan - fan is pretty powerful, and switched from cab.
Expecting a degree of natural flow without fan, due low pressuer under rear, but that will take tufting or smoke flows to swear to it!

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Also, for interest, a silencer mounted heat shield, to replace that dreadful thing that VW left hanging around Should give some protection to fan belt and engine compartment. Stainless steel strip sprung between existing mounts, but doesn't compromise them. Quite happy with this integrated solution below:-

HarryMann wrote:Subject matter has changed to oil coolers

I know but I was asking the same question in relation to intercoolers to find out if it could be done for that too.

@Harry: Seems like a very good but difficult way of doing things. Where did you put your air filter? Let us know how cool you get your oil with that setup.

A mechanic came up withy quite an interesting idea for placement of cooling rads, both air and oil. He said if part of the roof was cut out at the back and a recess put in so that the oil and intercooler can sit into them and then a cowl built over them it could work quite well and look like little more than a strange spoiler if done well. A lot of work though but definitely loads of airflow and out of harms way without having too much pipework. How exactly this would be implemented is something for the bodywork and engineer guys on here to figure out. Im just an idea man!

Thats a long way for the boost air to go to get intercooled? Oil maybe no problem.

Oil filter, where it was normally...

Does it work well enough - onviously not, head gasket gone now (or worse) - but was a tired engine of unknown history (other than that it had been used for towing with a lot of overboost)...