engine oil cooler?

[blown84]

ok, i know the 6.9 has a little tube thingy that IH and ford called an "oil cooler," but i dont thing it really does a whole lot. has anyone done an in-front-of-the-radiator style oil cooler their rig? if so, pics would be much appreciated.

as a side note, i dont really pull or haul a lot of things (other than a$$), but i do live in south texas, where there are two seasons: hot, and hotter. i just want the extra insurance of knowin my baby is gonna be runnin cool, no matter if im just cruisin, or haulin 20,000 lbs of God-knows-what.

 

[towcat]

liquid/liquid heat exchangers is always more efficient than air/liquid heat exchangers.

 

[blown84]

.... im missin somethin from that...

 

[franklin2]

If it was easier and cheaper to do it any other way, they certainly would have. Saving a dollar on each truck made would have been a tremendous cost savings. I would recommend leaving it alone unless it leaks. If it does, bite the bullet and fix it.

 

[blown84]

ok. i dont think mine really leaks, but maybe i mis-stated what i was wantin to know. i wanna put one of these:

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on my truck. what is the best way to go about it?

 

[Dieselcrawler]

really no reason to.

 

[mabc926]

The oil cooler on the truck does what it needs to do, I myself looked into taking the oil cooler off and getting a different one, but to do that it will take a few custom made parts, and there would be no benefits to an air style cooler.

Now if you really want to make sure your truck stays cool I would suggest getting an aluminum radiator, making sure your fan clutch works, and getting a better T-stat, and using coolant meant for diesel trucks not your friends Honda.

Also if you don't already have one, getting a bigger more free flowing exhaust and a cowl air intake would help.

As long as you haven't turned the pump up so it blows ridiculous amount of black smoke you should be fine with this combo.

 

[icanfixall]

These factory oil coolers really do work very well. I have an oil temp gauge and I usually see the same oil temps as what my coolant is. Hauling heavy will increase your oil temps but never will it get out of hand. To remove the oil cooler and run what you posted a pic of will take lots of modifications to the rear oil cooler header. Not only does that header have oil flowing thru it there also is coolant flowing thru it. Also the oil filter hangs off of it and the oil pressure regulating circut is in that too. The front header will need to be modified too because thats where the oil is pumped out from the pan into the cooler. So there is lots of design work needed to do away with what works fine. You can cause other problems with running oil thats too cool for the bearings.

 

[franklin2]

May I assume he wants to add the air cooler along with the original one? That should be easy enough if they make a sandwich adapter for the filter boss on these trucks.

 

[OLDBULL8]

What he doesn't seem to know is that the engine lube oil system on a diesel is a volumn system, not pressure. That in turn is what keeps the bearings cool. Any additions to the flow will restrict that. The squirters for the pistons require lots of volumn. An extra oil cooling system like he shows could be installed with a bung on the oil pan, and circulated with a separate electric pump. Diesel engines are designed to run "hot" for good combustion. ie: a t'stat was developed for 203* for radiator coolant temps. As an example for volumn, a 1/4" hole increased to 1/2" has 4 times the volumn capability, not just twice. If you lower the temp of any oil, the viscosity changes, which lowers the flow rate. My oil temp, when hot is ~ 230* circulated.

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[icanfixall]

I know the NASCAR eninges have oil heaters and they wont start an engine till the oil temp reaches 250 degrees. Understand these are much differant engines that what we have but still. Think about why they require the oil to reach that temp before attempting an engine start. Even if this posted felt they could fabricate an adapter and still run the factory oil cooler ... Thats a big job in fabrication. As I posted in my first reply. I feel and have proof these coolant to oil coolers do a great job of maintaining the oil temps in our engines... Really no need to change what works unless your trying to remove the heat making part of the standard oil cooler function. Great topic anyway....

 

[OLDBULL8]

Gary I deleted the NASCAR line, wasn't sure about it.
But if you look at the oil cooler, it's made for volumn. The small tubes is where the rad coolant goes thru, the large hole on the side is the oil flow. 3rd pic is where the oil filter attaches, large for volumn.

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[icanfixall]

Thanks for the good quality pics oldbull. That really shows others what these oil coolers look like. The last pic is a great pic on how the oil flows from the square hole.. then down thru the filter (thats not in the pic) and up and out the center hole. Thats area to the right with the 4 staked points holding in that part is the oil pressure regulater. Grinding off those points will allow you to reach the valve inside and the spring that wears out causeing low oil pressure in some rebuilds. No replacement springs are available either. thanks again for the pics. they show what needs to be seen...

 

[OLDBULL8]

Your welcome Gary.
Just trying to give all the info we can as a group so they can choose what path they want to proceed in.
Mainly so they don't screw up a well designed engine.

 

[icanfixall]

^^^^