fun night decided to change the oil cooler. in retrospect I am glad I did. but an adventure it was.
the oil cooler is bolted with 2 hollow bolts to the side of the engine kind of next to underneath the oil filter on a 2f. those 2 hollow bolts are what the oil passes through while it also has an inlet and outlet house fittings so as to run from the cooling system. clear as mud right
so first up to drain the oil I was due for an oil change anyway.that starts off well bucket under pan pull plug and let her go. next I loosen the oil filter and then pound 2 holes in the top with a screw driver a-la Ken flesher trick. but apparently I did not wait long enough cause when I pulled it off I still got oil everywhere. I put the old filter on my work bench and go to clean up the mess. once that is cleaned up as I am throwing away the rags i see that the oil filter was not done yet and has leaked all over my tool bench. one of those nights. little did I know.
so with the oil drained I get started on changing the oil cooler.figure to unbolt the old one and bolt the new one in by first just dealing with the oil bolts. that goes pretty smoothly only about a teaspoon of oil drips on my forehead but not bad. so with the new one loosely bolted in next comes swaping the coolant lines over.....I contemplate which one is better to do first the upper or lower and settle on putting vice clamps with a rag on each line the top one goes decently only loose a cup or so ofcourse it hits one of my work lights and blows the bulb. next comes the bottom hose.
I remember I did not change this hose out so I get a length of hose to replace it with. I get new hose clamps loaded up and am ready to go.so I undue the hose clamp from the old oil cooler and the hose won't slide off easily so I get an exacto knife to cut it off. and ofcourse the vice grips are not holding like they should so a few drops turns into a flood right at my head I scamble around and get a socket extension jammed in the lower hose and get the upper hose clamped better. only a half gallon or so on the floor and my head . not bad so I get the lower hose on the oil cooler end just the radiator side to go. so I deem it easier to get at from the front so i figure I will loose some fluid when I cut the hose off and the time it takes me to jam the new hose on......
cut the hose fluid start shooting out takes out my other work light so I am stuck in the dark and my eyes suck stick my rubber gloved finger over the outlet to regroup.with my finger plugging the hole I am able to grab another light with my feet and get it over . but not before soaking my arm and head (again) and discover the new hose is some how too short to reach the new inlet!! You got to be F kidding me.measure twice measure twice keeps running through my head. so now I got to get the old hose back on and clamped or somehow blocked so I don't get another toyota red shower and get a new hose.
so I am able to get a longer hose get it all attached and the truck back together. took almost 2 gallons to fill the coolant system and I am pretty confident that the missing fluid is either on my head or soaked up in my sweat shirt and coveralls.. I am waiting for the call this morning "honey why are your coveralls and sweat shirt in the the washing machine and whats that smell"
finally got to look at the oil cooler this morning and boy was it in bad shape all scaly and pitted I can't believe I missed that on the rebuild everything else got swapped or replaced. oh well it's done now. I love adventures in the garage. I think I had been getting to used to fabricating and forgotten how much fun an oil change can be.
Jason