• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Oil flow direction and oil cooler

Share this page

J

JohnDough

Senior Member
Offline
I would like to fit an oil cooler to my 1275 engine. When i visited the local supplier of oil coolers he asked whether the line I'll be using is before or after the filter.

I wasn't sure, could someone enlighten me, i.e. if there are any debris in the oil cooler will it be caught in teh filter before feeding the engine?

Thanks,

A
 
Well if you are using a stock spin on filet adapter the cooler is before the the filter, not exactly the ideal set up, but that's how they did on MG. The only way you can filter the oil before the cooler is with a remote filter housing, which is exactly what we do on the race cars, Winner Circle and Mini mania sell the adapter that repalces the the filt housing, but you probably would need to convert to AN fitting and hose, and all that is do-able as well.

But if you just want to put a cooler on and not re-invent the wheels tell the guy the cooler is before the filter, and I have no idea why he would even ask you that. Keep in mjind that your oil lines presently are BSP fittings, so you can't just buy aftermarket oil cooler and bolt it on, it's a little more complicated than that, but you can get BSP fitting oil coooler from your British part vendors, just get one for a MGB. Then you have the joy of fiquiring out how and where to mount it :smile:
 
Mounting it is the challenging part. Stock location in Bugsy my '68 worked until I went to the BE Bonnet. Lots of engineering time later, and several permanent changes to the Be Bonnet it fits. 3 Dimensional M<odeling of the underhood area of the Sprite along with BE Bonnet and all of the underpinnings sure would have been nice. Instead a whole lot of trial and error that probably slowed project completion by 6 months. Work load from real job hasn't helped at all either. BE Bonnet still not quite done but it opens and closes and latches down and I like the location of the oil cooler. Oil pressure at speed on warm days is staying up at 60-65 lbs instead of dropping to 50-55 after say 15 miles on a 85-90 degree day like it was before. That tells me oil cooler is working well.
 
That 15 miles BTW at 70 mph +.
 
The primary reason to cool oil is to reduce the tendancy for the oil ot break down from thermal shock. Your proposal of adding an oil cooler is good for regular oil. BUT! If you just go down to Wally World (Wal Mart) and purchase Mobil 1 fully synthetic oil, you have accomplished the same objective and NOT spent a lot of money or time on the alternative. Synthetic oil is impervious to thermal shock at the NORMAL temperature ranges you run your car, even is Auto-Crossed. The added benefit is that you can nearly double your drain period for oil change.... and with what regular oil costs today, it is just about the same cost.... I do Mobil 1 on ALL my vehicles! Better fuel mileage has been realized on them all.
 
Mobil 1 is amazing stuff Had a snowblower when we were in MN. and at 15 below with 0-30 in it, It would start on the first pull and not rip your arm out of the socket. Before the Mobil 1 starting it was a absoult bear. I have been toying with the idea of running it in the sprite heavy wieght of course do they make a 20-50?
 
There goes that "bigger, thicker, taller" is better mentality! Why 20W50? Based on WHAT engineering data? the horsepower it takes for an oil pump to pump that thick oil compared to 10W30 is astronomical... just spin up the oil pump with an air powered drill like I do, and the difference in kickback and resistance is absolutely amazing! I discourage use of that thick an engine oil unless the engine is a worn out thing needing rebuilt.
 
I have been using 20-50 castrol since rebulid 12,000 miles ago and have been in sprites for ever with no problems I think most do. Pretty sure its what is recomended. Running resistance of an air drill on a oil pump is not enough of a reason to convince me. I whant oil to stick around on my flat tappet engines.
 
20-50 since 1963. Just think of all the drill motors I could have saved.
 
texas_bugeye said:
Mobil 1 is amazing stuff Had a snowblower when we were in MN.
Click to expand...

Isn't synthetic a problem with older cars? I've had/ seen a lot of warnings about the lack of zinc in modern oils and synthetic seems to be on top of that list. I just used motorcycle oil in mine
 
Zinc Phosphate is what you allude in your post. And, there is none in synthetic oil, nor any parrafin base, so, ZDDP has to be added to synthetic, in the older cars... this is COMMON knowledge now, so I gave the person to whom I responded that lattitude... I WAS referring to why synthetic doesn't break down from heat, thus not needing an external oil cooler, but, digression rears it's head!

As far as the guys that have made comments about drill motors or how 20W50 has always been in their hup-mobiles and they ain't a changin'..... OK. That's your perrogative. Perhaps they are still using computers that run 286 processors, too. Who knows?

I TRIED Mobile 1 oil after resisting for many years. It really made such a positive difference overall, I want to share that good news. Like, cooler running engine, having to turn down the idle due to less internal friction, AND better fuel mileage... substantially better.
 
judt trying to understand 's all - do you then add the ZDDP?
 
JP, Valvoline VR-1 20-50 has ZDDP in it.
It's the correct weight per the manufacturer, has the stuff already blended for older engines, and is pour and play.
It's a really good oil, and widely available now.
 
I see also that Castrol is marketing what they call Castrol Classic, or something like that in a 20W50 that contains ZDDP. Now I haven't seen it on the shelves of my local AutoZone or Pep Boys but it is supposed to be formulated for Flat Tappet Engines.
 
Thanks all, The postive side if the filter is after the cooler is that any debris left in the cooler should be collected by the filter.

I'm going to fit the cooler infront of the radiator, don;t liek teh idea of wheel debris damaging it when it's on the side where the splash panel used to sit..

Is it worthwhile investing in an oil thermostat or not?

I dabbled in some oil analysis a number of years ago and I was under the impression tht ZDDP is more relevant to gear oils as an extreme pressure additive, not only that ZDDP would easily be leached out of oil with the smallest amount of water. From the combustion process and engine not heating up I would expect a fair amount being leached out of the oil from the condensation you get in an engine.

Down here in SA we don't have such a big choice of oil makes/types and visocities of synthetic oils, so I'll stick with the cheap and cheerful Castrol 20W50, the synthetic tend to be a lot lower 5W30 etc.
 
Back
Top