oil cooler and overheating

[Hoghead]

I just added a Moss oil cooler to my BJ8 in an attempt to keep engine temp under control and water temps have now risen to the point where it is unable to idle in 32C temps and running hotter than last summer

I am wondering if the hot air coming out of the cooler is blowing straight into the rad and making the problem worse rather than better?

 

[steveg]

I just added a Moss oil cooler to my BJ8 in an attempt to keep engine temp under control and water temps have now risen to the point where it is unable to idle in 32C temps and running hotter than last summer

I am wondering if the hot air coming out of the cooler is blowing straight into the rad and making the problem worse rather than better?

I have two friends in southern california who've installed the oil coolers and they run 10 degrees cooler for it.

Suggest you have your radiator overhauled and back flush your block. While you're at it, check the gauge against the temp at the thermostat housing. For that matter, install a new thermostat.

 

[RAC68]

I second all that Steve has suggested and would make sure the thermostat has the proper blocking cylinder to close off the warm-up bypass. An open bypass can add 20 or more degrees to your operating temperature as it allows engine-heated water to bypass the radiator for faster warm-up. I am a little surprised that the addition of an oil cooler hasn't reduced temperature unless the oil radiator has a shut-off that accidently was left off.

Good luck,
Ray (64BJ8P1)

 

[Randy Forbes]

Lets talk about the oil cooler some more...

Sometime in the mid 80s, I added an oil cooler to my car, then still with a 2.6 engine. I finished the installation, with the (13 row MGB) oil cooler mounted to the X-bars in front of the radiator, still visible in the grill opening.

I threw some clothes in the car, and set out on the twelve (12) hour drive from Louisiana to Florida; I'm barely twenty (20) minutes into the drive, at 4:30 in the afternoon, and the temperature gauge is climbing! At about 220*, I park under an overpass and have a look-see.

Knowing the oil cooler was the only thing I had worked on, I figured it had to be the problem, so I unbolted it (leaving the fluid connections intact) and Ty-Wrapped it behind the shroud, completely out of the airstream. And then set out again, watching the temperature gauge drop and hold nearer the 180* mark. Voila, problem solved!

Turns out that mounting an un-ducted heat-exchanger in front of another heat-exchanger created a negative air space, and I wasn't getting any airflow through either one!

After my trip was concluded, I stuck the oil cooler back in the mounts I made, and starting out with a cold engine, and about twenty (<20) minutes later seeing the gauge climbing past its usual running point. Now firmly convinced, I set about cutting the duct into the front shroud!

My destination back in 1985? After spending a night at my parent's house in Spring Hill, it was on to Cypress Gardens to enter my car in a Tampa Bay Austin-Healey Club event held there! Though these pictures were taken in 2012, just prior to next time I would show my Healey in Florida, the trophies were won in 1985.

So the moral of the story, is where you put your oil cooler can also help or hurt your good intentions!

 

[Hoghead]

Mine now heats up at idle too so no negative pressure issue at rest. The only change is the oil cooler.

 

[steveg]

Should have mentioned above, my two friends have the Moss oil cooler with added thermostat. The coolers were mounted on a crossbar between the frame rails, using the threaded holes from the inside of the bumper mounts.

This seems to work in that the cars do run cooler overall. They've been in long enough to have been on some 90+ degree drives last summer.

 

[Randy Forbes]

Mine's been mounted to the top of the frame rails, ducted through the shroud and with a baffle behind it so the air passes out under the water radiator, for about twenty (20) years now.

From the side:

From the top:

From the front:

From the back:

From the bottom (only shows the baffle deflecting air under the radiator):

 

[stuntflyr]

My dad installed a trans cooler to our Ford truck that carried a camper and towed a boat. He got a nice hydraulic fluid cooler from a DC-3 and plumbed it into the trans cooler lines and mounted it under the frame with the cooling fins vertical and I thought there's no air blowing through those fins, how's it going to work? He said we're just putting a heat exchanger in to add fluid and allow additional cooling, not ducting a new cooling system. I was skeptical but being 12 allowed that he knew more than me. Lo and behold, the trans shifted smoother, engine ran cooler and the whole thing was just as installed when someone stole the rig off of the street in 1994 when it was 25 years old.
Interesting how similar installation to the MGB didn't work under the Healey hood. The airflow must be very critical under the Healey by comparison.
Chris...

 

[HealeyRick]

Randy,

Love those old trophies with a Healey on top. I have a few, too. I don't know if they make them anymore. Bad enough we have vintage cars, now we have vintage trophies, too.

 

[Randy Forbes]

Randy,

Love those old trophies with a Healey on top. I have a few, too. I don't know if they make them anymore. Bad enough we have vintage cars, now we have vintage trophies, too.

LOL! I suspect we're getting pretty close to vintage ourselves

 

[Hoghead]

that is some very nice ducting and baffling. I only wish I had the same.
Now my sister has a CNC punch press that could make these if I only had a drawing....................

 

[dougie]

LOL! I suspect we're getting pretty close to vintage ourselves

!985.....humm, I think that was my sophomore year in college. I was terrorizing campus in my newly acquired 1969 Spridget.....good times!

 

[John Turney]

!985.....humm, I think that was my sophomore year in college. I was terrorizing campus in my newly acquired 1969 Spridget.....good times!

I assume your finger was accidently on the shift key and you didn't mean 985. I know you're not THAT OLD!