Re: oil coolers

["Brian A.Tink" <batink@domain.elided>]

John

Greetings from Canberra

To answer your specific question, I would have to admit that I did not use a temp guage in the oil, and let me make it clear that there is no doubt that, as you have found, under certain circumstances the reduction of temperature would occur.  for example, on a cold day when the air temp is low, the cooling factor would be better than on a stinking hot day when the air temp is about the 40c mark the effect would probably not be so noticable.

However, I would have to ask, which is the more important issue, oil pressure or oil temperature?

I have had oil pressure guages fitted to my cars for as long as I can remember and in over 40 years of driving I have never known oil pressure to drop low enough to cause damage purely by heat.  It is my belief that long before the oil gave up the ghost, the water temp guage would have been a couple of times around the clock and the pistons would have long stopped going up and down, having become welded to the cylinders.  In other words, there is something more drastically wrong than hot oil.

I have just spoken to the Lubricants Technical advisor at BP (British Petrolem) in Melbourne, and while they agree that prolong higher temp of oil, does increase the oxidation factor and therefore reduces the life of the oil, they do not believe that the oil in a reasonably maintained engine would ever get so hot to cause oil breakdown such as you have suggested.

For what is is worth, I use BP Visco 2000 in my sedans and BP Corse Plus in the Stag.  I run all cars with an electric fan only controlled both from a sensor and also by use of a override switch, and have never had any problems with over heating or oil pressure, even on days when the air temp is 40C Plus.

I hope my comments help to pacify some anxious concerns.

in the meantime  keep staggering





At 11:42 AM 15/03/99 -0000, you wrote:
>Brian,
>
>You wrote:-
>
>> About 3 years back i bought a cooler from Rimmers 
>> and as far as I am concerned it was a waste of money.  
>> I put is on and the first thing I found was that installing 
>> the pipe work around the pump, filter and exhaust pipe 
>> was a pain and secondly the only thing it did was reduce 
>> my oil pressure about 7 to 10 pounds.
>
>How do you know it didn't do anything apart from reduce your 
>oil pressure?  Did you have an oil temperature guage fitted?  
>If you did then I suspect you would have noticed the temperature 
>reduction, as I did. (See my last mail)  i.e. it kept the oil 
>temperature below 100 deg. C. in the sump.
>
>Without a guage you might not have noticed anything until
>your oil got so hot it thinned drastically and ruined all your
>bearings.
>
>I'n not trying to scare anyone here; as I said before, I haven't
>seen a figure for the maximum advised oil temperature.
>Before fitting the cooler my guage had read 120 deg. C
>which was about three quarters of the way round the dial.
>
>However I'm not planning on fitting one to my current Stag.
>I think if oil temp. was that critical we'd have seen a lot more 
>ruined engines over the last 29 years.
>
>John Clayton
>SOC member no.1570
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