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Oil cooler installation

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peteatgr

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I just purchased a 13 row oil cooler from Moss. What is the best location for its installation on a late number BJ8? It has mounting holes at the top and bottom corners on both sides but it looks like I have to make attaching fittings. I'm sure plenty of people have installed these. Any advice?
 
Mine's in an obvious location...

IMG_5871a.jpg
 
Thanks Randy. Beautiful work, but I don't see mine ending up that way. I am curious though as to what you fastened the cooler to in that location on the inside of the car.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks Randy. Beautiful work, but I don't see mine ending up that way. I am curious though as to what you fastened the cooler to in that location on the inside of the car.

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I'll try to find some pictures during construction...
 
Just about the same for me. A piece of steel (with folded edges for stiffness) bolts between the chassis leg ends. The oil cooler is bolted to that. As a British car, it needs a front reg plate, so I carefully cut out the black background leaving the silver digits. The wire mesh (to keep stones out) was painted black. From a distance you cant tell.
 
Thanks healeyneil. That sounds very clever. I'm going to have to get down there and take a closer look.
 
Hi Peteatgr,
Here is an earlier thread on oil cooler installations. I mounted mine in between the frame rails. I bought a Setrab cooler that was wider than Moss' and the same height as the frame (3”), mounted it just in front of the radiator. You probably could mount your cooler in the same spot, I would recommend a shield to keep road debris from whacking it.
 
How much does an oil cooler help with engine temperature? Even in the South, I never had a overheating problem with my BT7 when everthing was in good working order, but overheating seems to be a frequent subject on this forum.
 
Hi Richard,
I put my cooler in as an extra bit of insurance. The motor is freshly rebuilt with a couple horsepower increasing goodies (more HP, more heat). The Los Angeles area has been seeing heat waves of 115+ the last couple of years and I don’t think that is going to change from what I’ve been hearing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cryin.gif
 
Richard,
I've was out of town on vacation and didn't keep up with this topic until today, but I don't think an oil cooler will help much more then about 5 degrees on the water temp guage. It's my hope that I will see a better benefit in higher oil pressure due to the cooler oil and the increased oil quantity circulating in the system with the cooler and the hoses. In my case my higher then normal temp situation is more related to a currently bad manifold gasket on #6 cylinder (which is making that hole run leaner and hotter, and making the other 5 work harder).

Assuming good water flow through your radiator and engine block, my experience is that over temp is usually related to the engine timing. An oil cooler seems to me to just be a really good simple insurance policy for a 40 year old car more then an active cooling system that will show up on a guage.

Pete
 
I installed mine at the bottom of the radiator in front of the radiator. If the purpose is to stabilize oil temp and not to lower overall engine temp, this works well and avoids the need to open a hole at the lower front or to protect the oil cooler with an extra mesh, because it is mounted so low.

In my case the overall engine temp is no problem because I have a new alloy radiator in, which is much more efficient (also saves some weight).
 
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