Oil cooler advice - mocal take off plate

[davebem]

Hope someone can help..I want to replace an oil/coolant heat exchange unit on the back of an Alfa V6 engine for a take off plate and piped proper air-oil cooler radiator. Ive measured the readily available mocal take off/sandwich plate with thermostat and it will fit. However the mocal plate is designed to have an adapter for the size of the filter thread (mine is m20). Crucially these adapters are only available with an extender as it is assumed the filter screw wont be long enough.

This is the mocal plate, i have crossed out the adapter with extender.


The Alfa engine already has a long oil filter screw due to removal of heat exchanger so it doesnt need the extender which forms part of the mocal adapter. How can I get around this, will the oil cooler still be effective with no adapter (assuming it was centered correctly)?

Alfa V6 with heat exchanger and filter removed.

Edited by davebem on Monday 10th October 12:43

[Steve_D]

As Think Automotive. They will have the answer or come up with a work-around.

Steve

[CrutyRammers]

Can't see the pics.
I'm guessing yours is a later engine than mine (a '94 24v). I used a standard mocal take off with no difficulty but I'm guessing that yours is somewhat different...

[E-bmw]

All you do is to not use the adaptor.

The adaptor sits in a hole in the sandwich plate & then tightens the plate in place and allows you to screw the filter on.

Yours already has a threaded section long enough.

Remove the lock nut on the threaded section, fit the sandwich plate in the orientation that you want & tighten the locknut onto it to hold it in place.

[Peanut Gallery]

This guys is a PHer, I can't remember his PH name though, but I do remember he has fun with his V6 Alpha and cooling the oil / filter etc.

http://www.alfadax.com/

[davebem]

E-bmw said:

All you do is to not use the adaptor.

The adaptor sits in a hole in the sandwich plate & then tightens the plate in place and allows you to screw the filter on.

Yours already has a threaded section long enough.

Remove the lock nut on the threaded section, fit the sandwich plate in the orientation that you want & tighten the locknut onto it to hold it in place.

This is what I wanted to hear thanks, the locknut should be enough to hold it in place, ill try this.

Thanks for sharing the AlfaDax site, thats amazing, it looks like he used a take off plate to relocate the filter, but his is either a 3.0, or a 3.2 that already has provisions for oil cooler, where mine is a 2.5 that only has the heat exchanger setup.

[CrutyRammers]

Peanut Gallery said:

This guys is a PHer, I can't remember his PH name though, but I do remember he has fun with his V6 Alpha and cooling the oil / filter etc.

http://www.alfadax.com/

I can see the pics now, and the filter mount here is different to mine. The long threaded section is also much longer.
I was using a remote fitting rather than a sandwich plate, so slightly different anyway. However I'd have thought that E-BMW is right, the adaptor is surely just a screw-in piece which can be removed.
Often with these things you just have to buy it and see what you can do with it.

[the_stoat]

Also consider the Laminova style water to oil heat exchangers as opposed to going oil/air.

I gave up after several attempts to try and get stable oil temperatures on both road and track with my Westfield using oil/air coolers. It was either too cold on the road or too hot on track. Installed the Laminova and on the road it drags the oil temperature up and cools it on track. Again Think Automotive stock these.

[E-bmw]

the_stoat said:

It was either too cold on the road or too hot on track. Installed the Laminova and on the road it drags the oil temperature up and cools it on track. Again Think Automotive stock these.

The OP should not have that issue as he says he is using a thermostatic sandwich plate.

[the_stoat]

E-bmw said:

The OP should not have that issue as he says he is using a thermostatic sandwich plate.

So did I, the slight leak past was enough to have a cooling effect.

[davebem]

I finally got around to doing this.

Old heat exchanger removed.


I went for a 16 row narrow cooler, and added a spacer so the take off plate clears the 2.5 exchanger housing.


Test fitting,I need to make sure the pipes clear the driveshaft, manifold heatshield and dont get in the way of oil filter changes! Then they will route under the engine along with the power steering pipes to the front somewhere.


I have a few questions I couldnt easily find on the net.
For the male to male fittings that screw direct into the take off plate, should I use some sort of thread sealing compound as there is no rubber washer?
It looks like the flow to the cooler is never sealed off, the thermostat just controls direct flow to the filter, blocking the easiest path once its closed forcing all the flow through the cooler, so does the orientation of the take off plate affect its operation? e.g. is it relying on gravity, do the cooler inlet and outlet need to be at the bottom? It needs to go at an angle.

Edited by davebem on Friday 21st July 10:30

[Steve_D]

As you say the oil just takes the easiest path so angle of fitting or gravity does not come into the equation.

Steve

[CrutyRammers]

From what I remember, I bunged some silicone sealant on the threads of all the threaded adaptors before screwing them in, on the assumption that it wouldn't do any harm. I've not had any leaks. (well, not from those bits )

[the_stoat]

No need for silicon on the metal to metal seal.

When you come to put the pipes on have the metal fittings in the freezer and heat the end of the pipe being pushed on in boiling water. You will see why when you try and push them together! You need forearms like Popeye.