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MG MGB Technical - HELP!! Oil Cooler leak!!

Hello all you folks from Beautiful Kincardine, Ontario on Lake Huron. Had a great run up here in the B. 125 miles and she just purred all the way. Now, I notince I have a leak in my oil cooler. I cannot get parts here so I was wiondering what to do. I was thinking of removing it anyway, as I have read a lot of the archives on this. In the meantime, do I just keep checking the oil level and top up? Can I disconnct the hoses and attach them together for now? If so, what size is the connector I will need?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.I'll come into town tomorrow to see all your great suggestions. I'm in town tonight for a classic car show

Ken
70 Pale Primrose Yellow B
Ken Harris

Hi,

First of all I am no expert here (having a lot of questions myself) but wherever I can give at least some advice I try to do so ;). I run my car without an oil cooler at the moment and there are no major problems. It depends on your environment whether you need an oil cooler or not. Personally I actually do plan to add one as soon as all other things that have a higher priority to be fixed are done.

I think it's no problem if you remove your cooler and connect the hoses together. I have no clue what kind of connector size you'd need for that. My advice however would be to keep your oil level good and just find a replacement for your oil cooler asap. They're not that expensive and do have a use in keeping things a btt cooler.
A.J. van Donselaar

Ken,

Hopefully you will also have some "experts" at the car show that may add to any advise here. I think you first have to decide whether the leak is serious enough to warranant any type of field repair or can it wait till you're closer to home. You can also decide, once home whether you'll continue with the oil cooler or not. I would suspect, in your climate that you could run without but it's nice to have for very warm days and on the other days you could use an oil cooler shroud, available from Moss and others. That notwithstanding, the real question is what to do now. You and others there will have to decide how bad the leak is and where its comming from.

WHATEVER YOU DO...please remember that each hose on the cooler is attached to a very fragile flange. Two wrenches are required. One to hold the flange from tearing off the cooler and the other wrench for tighening or loosening the hose attachment nut. If you use only one wrench, your stay in Kincarne will be a few days longer as you wait for new parts to arrive! Gar un teed! My vote, sight unseen is that a hose is leaking at the flange connection and a quarter turn will fix it--at least that would be the easiest!

To run without the oil cooler, I'm sure you could just run with new, modified rubber or SS hoses or perhaps others know of a supply house that sells such an item but the original hard piping is somewhat hard to find.


Good Luck!

Paul
Paul Hanley

Sorry Ken,

I overlooked the obvious--if the cooler itself is leaking, simply take the hose that goes from the rear of the block and connect it to the oil filter conection thus bypassing the oil cooler. A bit messy but it would get you home.
Paul Hanley

Ken. As Paul suggests, use of the existing hoses is a possibility. While he suggests using the one coming off the rear of the block, I would suggest using the one from the oil cooler to the oil filter adapter. If you can remove it from the oil cooler fitting, route it back to the rear of the engine block. The other hose is signficantly longer and might prove to be in the way. In reality, you will have to use which ever hose can be gotten loose at the oil cooler. This can be a problem sometimes. (Actually, it has been a problem every time I have attempted it.)

It might be possible to have a custom hose made up at a hydraulic shop using the connection to the oil filter and the rear of the block if all else fails. Chris Betson has written of this in the past.

I would not recommend driving with the leaking cooler. The leak can get worse and an oil starved engine costs a lot more than a custom hose or spending an extra day or two while Moss ships in a new hose via "next day air". My experience with a cracked oil cooler (on my 68) was that the connection on the oil cooler split at the base of the connection. That form of problem can only get worse once the structural integrity of the material is breached. Don't take a chance on ruining your engine. Les
Les Bengtson

Ken - The fix that Paul and Les suggest is the only one that will work for you in the field since the fittings at each end of the hose is a British Standard Pipe (Parallel). I believe that the size is a 1/2" BSP, but it may be one size up from that and it is doubtful that you will find a double male locally to connect the two hoses together. Since all the fittings on the block, filter adaptor and cooler are the same size, the fix above should work fine (and this is the normal routing of the oil path without a cooler anyway. Good luck - Dave
David DuBois

Good Morning Ken,

Les is correct in that you would idealy want the shortest hose since the span from the rear block fitting to the oil filter is maybe a foot---and you've got a lot of hose to route without kinking. I suggested the rear fitting be left alone if possible, since it is the most difficult of the four connections to get a wrench on. And you're in the field. You will need to disconnect the smaller oil hose (the one that goes to your oil pressure gauge) to get to that fitting if you need to go that way. Use a small adjustable wrench. On either of the rear fittings, large or small, be careful not to move the fittings from the block, or you will have openened another can of worms. Again, use two wrenches. If you have new hoses from Moss, they are both the same length so it won't matter. In either case both hoses should be removed from the oil cooler. The flanges on the cooler should be wrapped in many layers of duck tape to prevent the relative (oncomming) wind from picking up residual oil and spraying it on your restored engine compartment. The hose that will not be used should be pulled through the shrould, placed in a plastic bag and relegated to the boot.

Les's concern not to run the car without the repair is most prudent and conservative. The daredevil in me would want to nurse the thing back to my garage first, taking my time on back roads and never going more than thirty seconds without glancing at the oil pressure gauge. I'd pull over every 10 to 20 minutes to recheck and before you knew it the 125 miles to your door would be covered. That's just me though. Realize though once you leave the show, your access to the larger wrenches may be gone! Your call.

Cheers and good luck with both the cooler and the show.

Paul



Paul Hanley

I'd follow Paul's method with one addition. I'd stop at a parts store ( since you want to get an emergency supply of oil), buy a piece of tubing that's appropriate to the ID of the hoses, and a couple clamps. If the leak got massive, as an emergency repair, I'd cut both hoses insert the tube and clamp it up to get the car on home. This of course assumes you have the rubber and not the stainless steel teflon type hoses.
R. L Carleen

I am guessing that the connection on each end of the hose is the same. Therefore the easiest thing would be to disconnect on hose at the engine end then disconnect the other at the cooler ( remember the 2 spanner rule). Then route the hose removed from the cooler back to where the other hose was diconnected from the engine. This would make a simple loop and should not require a joiner.

Cheers, ggod luck and enjoy the show.
RM Taylor

Thanks for all your help fella's. I took the hose coming from the rear of the block and put it to the oil filter. Worked fine. Finished my holidays and drove home in 85 degree F weather without a hitch. Infact, my temp gauge was slightly cooler than normal. I may just leave the cooler out and use the $$ to put toward a new top.

Thanks again, this is why this site is the best.

Ken
Ken Harris

Yo Ken,FYI ,I have put about 25K miles on my 1970 MGB sans an oil cooler. Other than the fact that this obstuction was removed from the radiator and the car runs a tad cooler at highway speeds, the major benefit is that when I change the oil ,the fresh oil is not contaminated by the half liter of oil in the cooler and hoses.
As well, it is easier to access the distributer and I can keep the engine bay a little cleaner now.
Should you however decide to retain an oil cooler and yours is not servicable,I do have an oil cooler and hoses for sale!
Cheers
Jon Rosenthall

While the problem posed is solved. I thought I would throw in some information. I have had no trouble getting fittings that fit the B oil cooler at US auto parts stores that do hydraulic hose work. Threads screw on and tighten up without any problem. Should not be a problem making a double male fitting to connect the hoses together.
Bruce Cunha

Ken,
Of course a temporary oil cooler short circuit is the present solution to your trouble. Very interestingly, Jon Rosenthall shown up an interesting tip: removing the oil cooler made the car run cooler by
enlarging the core heat transfert usefull area, confirmed by the factory MGC GTS installation , under the horizontal front panel instead of below . Any opinion would be welcome.
Regards
Renou

Renou. I removed the oil cooler from my 68GT when it began to leak. It was also positioned in front of the radiator. On my car, there was no temperature difference noted with the increased air flow. The later model, rubber bumper cars, had the oil cooler mounted under the shelf in front of the radiator. Again, I noted no change in the operating temperature, as reflected by the dash gauge, when I added an oil cooler to my daughter's 77. Les
Les Bengtson

The oil cooler has been a subject of some debate.

IMHO the cooler is beneficial only when the oil is hot. Installation of a oil thermostat greatly increases the probability that the cooler will function when necessary instead of all the time.

Taking the oil cooler out of the airstream can only help the cooling efficiency of the radiator. Moving the cooler to direct contact with the radiator is a good second-best as the plumbing and cooler out in front of the radiator creates a major disturbance in the air-flow and the resulting turbulence reduces the effectiveness of the radiator.

Instead of messing with moving the cooler I put a shroud between it and the radiator. I don't know for certain if it helped but I FELT better for it lol! Took it off in favor of a pusher fan on the radiator (failed experiment) and haven't replaced it.

mike!
mike!

This thread was discussed between 31/07/2004 and 05/08/2004

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