WON The Battle of the OIL COOLER! HEHE

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After owning his truck for almost a year with a leaking oil cooler, we finally picked up an oil cooler for it about 2 weeks ago and started tearing into it last night. Ended up spending most of today on it because there was so much rust on everything, and broke most of the bolts off including the manifold bolts. But hey, we're McNamee's and we knew it had to fight us every step of the way, and it sure did.
But in the end we kicked its butt :backoff

Here's how we went about it, just so its on the forum and people have another way of doing it. My brothers new cooler was just that, a brand new Ford Service part that was assembled and we didnt want to touch it. So instead of the old trick of pulling the motor mount and breaking the cooler in half and installing it in pieces we decided to go a different rout.
He started out by pulling the drivers wheel off, and pulling the wheel well out of the fender. Then dropped the front drive shaft, drained all the fluids and dropped the crossover pipe. We then unbolted the exhaust manifold and then the oil cooler, slid the cooler down under the block a little ways and dropped the manifold out, followed by the cooler.
Doing it this way leaves you plenty of room to clean all the gasket surfaces and do whatever else needs done while you're in there. We ended up having to replace the rear brake line that goes into the ABS valve because it was almost rusted all the way through.
Dont forget to coat the manifold gasket with copper coat 12 hrs before you are to install the gasket, this will ensure a cured coat and ensure a proper seal.
I also put a skim coat of ultra black RTV on both mating surfaces of the oil cooler, giving it just that extra touch.
When reinstalling everything put the oil cooler in first and jockey the manifold up in there after the cooler is in and torqued down.
When pulling the manifold and re torquing the manifold do it in this method.
[2][1][3][4] then followed by a line pattern in this method <[4][3][2][1]<
Torque the manifold bolts to 35ft lbs, both times.
Torque the oil cooler bolts to 24ft lbs, starting in the center and working out.
Everything is sealed up and nothing leaks, except the oil filter, but I think it just needs tightened more than I have it.
 
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adam g

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Hey good job. I will be happy when I am done with my new project. I bought a 97 town and country van with a blown motor. The book calls for 13 hrs to change it so far I have 12 hours in it with 3 or 4 to go. Hard work sucks but when your done you get to drive it. That always worth something.
 

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Whats that Calvin?
lol
Oh, dont forget to replace the fluids before starting the truck back up??? lol
 

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Oh, yea! Forgot that one!

If you're cooler had been leaking oil into the cooling system go out and get yourself some Calgon from the Beauty dept at your local supermarket/walmart. Fill your cooling system up with water, mixing the Calgon into the water (about half the box will suffice). Run the truck for a while with the Calgon in the system and then drain it. The Calgon will flush all traces of oil residue from the system.

Oh yea, if you're like me, have your brother look like the gay one and buy the Calgon, because they WILL look at you strange for buying it. lol
 
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