Air cooled oil cooler 2003T

[whiteoaks7]

If you have a 20 year old VP 2003T check your oil cooler (behind the heat exchanger). Mine has corroded away and was on the verge of dumping all the engine oil. It's made of aluminium and brass- probably the two worst metals you could put together in sea water (barring zinc of course). So I'm tending towards ignoring a direct replacement and using instead a car type air-draught cooler. This will mean a fan and some flexible pipework and, since it's made of aluminium, careful siting in the engine compartment.

So, can any of you gurus think of a compelling reason not to go down this path?

Cheers

 

[pvb]

While you're working in that area, David, check the condition of the external steel pipe which feeds high pressure oil to the turbocharger. Pinhole corrosion in this pipe can dump a remarkable amount of oil in the bilges very rapidly (don't ask how I know!).

 

[William_H]

Oil cooler

There is no real reason why an air cooled oil cooler should not be just as good as sea water cooled one.
Indeed the oil cooler may well be set up as a cabin warmer by redirecting the warm air to the cabin.(or not depending on ambient temp)
An oil temp gauge would be really good as it may show that you don't need a cooler at all or may not need a fan on the cooler. I think it is good to have warm oil especially for short engine runs to evaporate water etc from the oil. I guess much will depend on whether you run the engine at high power for long periods.
just a few thoughts olewill

 

[Bajansailor]

Here is a link to a thread I started a couple of years ago about the oil cooler on our 2003T - http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211681 - methinks this could be a(nother) compelling reason for going down your air draught cooler path!
It has a photo of the oil cooler after I removed it and cleaned it up - it never actually leaked any oil (before the engine blew up).
Nice (?) brass tubes, and the aluminium was corroding away as merrily as zinc would.....

As an update to this saga, we eventually re-engined with a second-hand 2003 (non turbocharged!) and this has been running very sweetly - although it is still fresh water cooled it is so much less complicated (and no hidden oil cooler behind the heat exchanger to worry about).

 

[whiteoaks7]

Thanks folks, Banjansailor your photos have convinced me, mine looks a little like that but not quite so bad (and my engine still runs). So I'm off to find the biggest air cooled oil cooler I can find and a fan to suit.

 

[whiteoaks7]

While you're working in that area, David, check the condition of the external steel pipe which feeds high pressure oil to the turbocharger. Pinhole corrosion in this pipe can dump a remarkable amount of oil in the bilges very rapidly (don't ask how I know!).

VP must be taking the pssss - the cost of this replacement pipe is E206!!! The little water pipe that feeds into the exhaust elbow (which is a bit battered on mine) E202! What is going on?

 

[penfold]

Just replace it with a oil/water cooler from Bowman or one of the other specialists; proper ones are made entirely of DZR brass and copper so corrosion really shouldn't be an issue. I can't imagine why VP didn't plumb it into the main cooling circuit anyway; does your engine not have a freshwater circuit? Heating up the air in your engine compartment more than it is already is a bad idea.

 

[pvb]

VP must be taking the pssss - the cost of this replacement pipe is E206!!!

"Only" £142 inc VAT in UK.

 

[whiteoaks7]

Bowman DC

Just replace it with a oil/water cooler from Bowman or one of the other specialists; proper ones are made entirely of DZR brass and copper so corrosion really shouldn't be an issue. I can't imagine why VP didn't plumb it into the main cooling circuit anyway; does your engine not have a freshwater circuit? Heating up the air in your engine compartment more than it is already is a bad idea.

Something else for me to consider, a Bowman DC. I'd not heard of Bowman before so thanks for the pointer.