Is it possible to remove the oil cooler without draining coolant?

[W124_Karl]

Hi all,

So, I just had a friend and fellow autocrosser help me do a front 60K on my '89. That part went great. What hasn't gone so great is the replacement oil cooler seal. Bought the o-ring from shosource, put it on, with a couple dabs of grease to hold it in place while installing it.

It's leaking.

Of course, this leak didn't become evident until after filling the car with coolant and oil and running it for a bit.

So here's my question. Two questions actually:

1. Is it possible to remove the oil cooler without draining the cooling system?

2. Is there a better way to stop this leak? I used only the o-ring, no RTV or anything like that.

Advice would be very welcome. It'll be crappy if I have to drain the cooling system again, but this is a big leak and has to be fixed.

Very frustrating.

 

[rubydist]

I think you are stuck draining the coolant again.

There is a thread on the forum that I posted which gives an alternate seal, which should be available locally. I put the seal on the same way you did (I used a few dabs of gasket maker rather than oil), so as long as it did not move before you got it installed, there is not much more you can do.

 

[W124_Karl]

Well, not what I was hoping to hear, but also not a surprise. Probably better that way in terms of making a seal.

Might try to drain the coolant by taking off one of the lines to the cooler, putting that into a larger hose like a left over radiator hose, and directing into a bucket. Seems such a shame to potentially throw away three gallons of distilled water + Zerex G-05.

Is there any value in trying to obtain a somewhat thicker o-ring than the shosource one? My thinking being to get one a little thicker, and having it kind of flatten out once I put the cooler back on. I wonder if an alternate could be sourced out of Viton from McMaster-Carr or similar.

Really annoying problem to have, especially having bought a quite expensive o-ring app to have it end up leaking worse than it did before.

 

[rubydist]

you can drain from the radiator and still capture the 'new' coolant. just put a small hose on the radiator drain port, and direct into a bucket. open the valve enough to drain but not enough to leak around the valve screw thingy.

taking the hose off the cooler is a good way to get a coolant shower, imho.

http://www.shoforum.com/index.php?threads/1993-atx-oil-filter-housing-gasket.124888/#post-1383351
The above thread will give you the alternative seal number.

 

[W124_Karl]

Update:

Got the oil and coolant drained, and the cooler removed. Looks like the shosource o-ring may have shifted out of place on install, it was tucked inward in one place. That could have happened when I removed the cooler, too, so it's impossible to say for sure if that's what caused the leak.

With the cooler off, and cleaned, I've got the shosource o-ring installed on it again. This time, I laid down a tiny bead of Hondabond, just enough to keep it in place, pretty much like you wrote about here:

http://www.shoforum.com/index.php?t...eaking-oil-cooler-gasket.125358/#post-1389083

It's curing now.

 

[shomethe$$$]

An o-ring will never work for long, been through this before, you need to use the oil filter seal like in the write up. The oil cooler which is actually an oil heater, doesn't have enough ribbing to keep the o ring in place for long, it will curl up in the none ribbed areas. The square ring will hold up better. Plus it's not silicone unlike the shosource one. Use the oil filter gasket.

Honda bond is a waste, silicone does not bond to silicone. That's why the rubber oil filter one is better. Silicone bonds to that good. I cut and welded the union bolt and eliminated the cooler/heater, got tired of replacing those tight bend heater hoses and also no oil all over the starter.

 

[W124_Karl]

So far so good with the shosource o-ring reinstalled. I think the Hondabond helped. Not for the sealing, but just to keep that o-ring in the right place during installation.

Draining the coolant was still kind of a mess. This is an aftermarket radiator, and the drain just doesn't work very well. Ended up draining it into a bucket. The real coolant bath almost came when I undid the oil cooler line, but an old radiator hose served me well as a makeshift funnel to help direct the mess. So, keep those big radiator hoses around, they're useful.

Found a spare gallon of coolant, so I mixed up some new instead of reusing what I had. Now I'll just have to find a way to dispose of several gallons of waste antifreeze instead of just a few.

 

[SHOdded]

Looks like the valve cover gasket is not the only part that can use a little help during installation

Former: 1995 ATX, 1992 MTX

 

[W124_Karl]

So far so good still, at least, the oil cooler seems fine. It's dry at its base, the filter is dry, basically everything that I used to see oil on, I don't see oil on anymore. Success!

I still smell an oil leak though, and I saw one on the ground this morning. But the cooler is try. For the moment I'm going to monitor the oil level closely, and see if the "leak" is just left over from the first round. I bet the cooler got oil all over the place when it was leaking.

That means I'll also search around for a thread on how best to clean these motors without ruining anything.

Looks like the valve cover gasket is not the only part that can use a little help during installation

Former: 1995 ATX, 1992 MTX

Yeah, putting some kind of gasket maker on the cooler to serve as makeshift glue seems like the only sure way to make sure that thing doesn't move around during installation. It's kind of a tight fit to get the cooler back on, especially with large hands, so I can imagine the gasket getting knocked out of place without it.