david85
Full Access Member
A bit disappointed today when I checked the fluids on my truck. Oil was fine but when I popped the rad cap, I saw even more oil! Oil in the coolant is very black, so not many places that could come from.
The truck still runs fine and no bubbles were seen after 20 min of idling with the rad cap off. So it looks like an oil cooler failure. The weather has been cooling off lately and I suspect this may have been the last straw. The O-rings currently in the cooler are as old as the engine rebuild (10 years ago, was it??), and came with the felpro gasket kit. All four of them were black, IIRC.
Anyway, I've been scouring the forum and have narrowed it down to two repair methods:
1. Remove the cooler as an assembly: Steering shaft, front drive shaft, inner fender, crossover pipe, driver's side exhaust manifold and anything else in the way will have to come out first. This allows the cooler to be easily removed and installed as an assembly. It also allows better access to prep the gasket surfaces on the block, particularly for the front manifold.
2. Remove the rear manifold and bundle only: The front manifold stays in place. Supposedly this eliminates nearly all of the extra dismantling with method 1. Assembly is done by prying with a 2x4 to compress the assembly back together onto the side of the engine. Seems like a nice alternative, if it works.
Does anyone have any nightmares to share about aftermarket parts on a job like this? I see that Dorman makes a new bundle and it comes with a gasket set. Open to suggested vendors from the forum as well. I like to support the community if I can.
The truck still runs fine and no bubbles were seen after 20 min of idling with the rad cap off. So it looks like an oil cooler failure. The weather has been cooling off lately and I suspect this may have been the last straw. The O-rings currently in the cooler are as old as the engine rebuild (10 years ago, was it??), and came with the felpro gasket kit. All four of them were black, IIRC.
Anyway, I've been scouring the forum and have narrowed it down to two repair methods:
1. Remove the cooler as an assembly: Steering shaft, front drive shaft, inner fender, crossover pipe, driver's side exhaust manifold and anything else in the way will have to come out first. This allows the cooler to be easily removed and installed as an assembly. It also allows better access to prep the gasket surfaces on the block, particularly for the front manifold.
2. Remove the rear manifold and bundle only: The front manifold stays in place. Supposedly this eliminates nearly all of the extra dismantling with method 1. Assembly is done by prying with a 2x4 to compress the assembly back together onto the side of the engine. Seems like a nice alternative, if it works.
Does anyone have any nightmares to share about aftermarket parts on a job like this? I see that Dorman makes a new bundle and it comes with a gasket set. Open to suggested vendors from the forum as well. I like to support the community if I can.