Hey everyone. I took a peek at my oil cooler through my front bumper tonight and noticed two things. First of all i got a pretty bad leak from the line on the right side of the cooler, second of all the foam thing on the bottom is kinda coming off.
Anyway, for those of you who chose not to rip it off...what kind of adhesive did u use to put it on? I only ask cuz everything in my engine bay is covered in oil and i dont want this crap coming off on the highway.

While i'm here...i'll be changing these leaking *** oil cooler lines asap. Is there anything i should be looking for on the oil cooler itself to make sure that its good to go?

Thanks a bunch!

 

At their age the rubber oil cooler lines are deteriorating. It's most likely your line not your cooler. Get some nice SS lines from corksport, it comes with a set of crush washers and and will have no more leak. The oil cooler is pretty much bullet-proof unless it has received physical damage, however it could be leaking, but I would go with leaky lines as my guess. I think the foam is their to absorb liquids, if it is coming off, then...I dunno, I ripped mine off cause it was fugly.

 

If the foam is saturated with oil, it's crap- get the junk off there, clean the surfaces real good, then you can worry about what to replace it with...

You can clean just the very left side of the cooler internals (where the lines connect), or you can crack open the thermal bypass valve and try to get to the rest of the insides if you wish...

 

how do you bypass that valve?
put some washer on them???
i am really interested!!!!

 

I took a look at mine just the other day... ugh.. what a mess. Not only is my oil pan gasket leaking, but my oil cooler is covered in oil, the lines are saturated in black goodness. The cooler itself is COMPLETLEY clogged with sediments on the outside in the fins, its like an oilish mud that covers about a good third of the cooler... its just nasty.

I looked at the lines from fc3s and they were 180$ US just for some ******* lines... ouch.. Maybe if I have some extra $ I'll get em..

 

some where the web save for only 130 i think...
i could remember the site... sorry
maybe corksport or something

 

$180 is better than the crappy OEM oil cooler lines bursting open on the freeway and causing your engine to seize up before you can do anything. Some things you just can't put a price on

 

words of the wise.

 

Sorry I don't remember details but you can probably search and find that some people made custom SS lines cheaper (around $50 IIRC) here.

 

The foam is there to deflect air and keep it going through the cooler rather than under it.

 

Definitely replace the foam. Don't just rip it off. A hardware store would probably sell something suitable.

 

Man its hard to find these posts after leaving it be for a day.

Anyway thanks for the responses. I ordered a nice set of SS ones from corksport but they're on backorder right now. Until then i'll just keep a few quarts of 20W50 handy.

BTW, i did a search and someone mentioned needing a 23mm socket. Is that accurate? Cuz i was lookin around Crappy tire (here in canada) and they dont seem to carry that size.

 

^^^