This isn't going to be a full post but the first stage of oil cooling is complete. I wanted to incorporate a bit of safe-guarding for the oil temperature and initially wanted to use an air to oil cooler in the right hand intake. However, many people pointed out that without decent airflow (mounted in the nose is best) they're not actually very efficient. Also mounting in the nose means super long hoses and potentially lots of oil left in them during changes, so I went for a different route.
I picked this laminova up from eBay pretty cheaply. It is a Rover part from the KV6 that uses the coolant to cool the circulating oil, so unlike the air systems this would provide constant cooling whether the airflow is good or not. Other parts I'll need is a sandwich plate between the oil filter and housing for the braided hoses (with built in thermostat to ensure the oil isn't overly cooled), an oil temp sensor and I've also bought a different vauxhall wiper that has the rear wiper function I will hook up to a relay to switch between coolant and oil temp displays on the Stack unit, perfect for trackdays as I can easily flick between the two without having to hold any buttons on. I didn't want a separate gauge for the oil temp as I like how clean the dash is and I couldn't use the spare Peugeot switch for the temp display as it is already being used for my manual fan.
The unit came pretty grubby and full of old crappy oil, so would need a good clean up.
Taking it apart was fairly easy, only tricky part was getting the gasket pieces off without bending/ruining them. I couldn't pull or twist them off so in the end I got a flathead screwdriver and carefully prised them off. Ideally I wouldn't reuse a gasket but I imagine it is unlikely I'll find new ones.
Finally the central radiator piece was removed. This has lots of fins just like a radiator to dissipate the heat, but it was also full of crap. I was amazed how much oil actually washed out of this.
Tough to photograph but the unit was also full of crap and grit, probably never opened and cleaned out. Hopefully it never gets this bad when I have it installed.
I spent a good couple of hours with an old bucket and lots of hose water to clean out all the crap and old oil. I got as much as I could out the radiator part but it was just never ending so had to stop once it looked as clean as I was going to get it. Everything else cleaned up well.
The main unit cleaned up well but the outside had a fair bit of crap plastered on it that was too tough to remove with the brushes I was using, so I got my dremel and went over it with a wire brush. I think the unit is under the engine in Rovers so is in the firing line for all kinds of dirt and crap. Left side is where I'd cleaned, right is still dirty.
All taped up and ready for paint.
I usually like painting things black to hide them, however I thought it would be better to go with silver so I could spot any oil leaks easier, hopefully there won't be any to spot. I was initially going to spray the pipe outlets to match but the can ran out (only just managed one coat for the main unit) and also keeping them bare metal would guarantee no paint chipping off and going into the coolant.
I initially didn't want to use the original o-rings and bought some new ones. I bought some that had the same cross section at 3mm but testing them I wasn't confident they would properly seal. So I bought some 4mm ones that I hoped would also help with sealing the unit with the old gaskets as these slightly protruded above the clamping surface.
However, when putting everything back together I couldn't get the coolant outlets to seat. I saw the originals were almost square cross sectional as opposed to circular, so I had to reuse them. Not the end of the world but using new would have been better.
The unit is now all back together and ready to be fit in place. I really cranked down on the bolts as tight as I could to compress the old gaskets as much as possible.
I plan to put the unit along the engine bulkhead just before the coolant pipe goes into the RH sill off to the radiator. This position also means I only need very short braided hoses to connect the unit to the sandwich plate. Hopefully less old oil remains in the system during changes too. I did think to place the unit after the radiator as this would make the system more efficient at cooling the oil, but then the oil would heat the coolant before it entered the engine, which I think could cause problems and also would need much longer braided hoses and I don't fancy relocating the thermostat.
I'll eventually get around to putting it on the car but I think it wont be a straight forward thing to sort as it requires both coolant and oil to be drained, the coolant pipe to be cut to make room for the unit, cutting and building the braided hoses at the correct length, probably a shorter oil filter (Renault 5 turbo I think), then all the work to get the temp sensor sorted and the stack reading etc. I think this might wait until after the season's trackdays are done so I can tie it in with the normal fluid changes. I would reuse the coolant but reusing oil I'm not so keen, which is a shame as it is pretty fresh so hesitant to do the work now and miss the nice weather.
