Aftermarket oil cooler - E36 M3

[sniff diesel]

Had problems with a leaking connection on an OEM oil cooler on track at Anglesea last saturday. The alloy where the pipes connect in was all pitted so even with new O rings and a bit of instant gasket oil was still weeping out a bit. Sorted it out with a bit of chemical metal in the end but I see that as only a temporary solution really. The problem I see with the original cooler is you cannot tighten the pipes into the unions enough, as there's only the one small bolt to hold both pipes in. It's the same at the filter housing end of the pipes - I've already stripped the thread from one whilst over tightening it.

What I'm thinking of doing is getting the pipe inserts tapped to accept a threaded male pipe union to mate up to an aftermarket oil cooler. Anybody else had problems with their oil cooler?

[pat_y]

I believe a similar thing happened with my last 3litre, the owner previous to me replaced it with a new cooler sourced from germany (non genuine but looked right, apologies i cannot remember who the supplier was.
Surely the ususal suspects, bexley/CA automotive will be able to do an aftermarket go faster version for an eye watering sum, other than that i would be tempted to get a used one, talk to Chris Ransley (E36 M3 breaker extraordinaire)good bloke, can be contacted at: [e-mail]

[sniff diesel]

pat_y said:

talk to Chris Ransley (E36 M3 breaker extraordinaire)good bloke, can be contacted at: [e-mail]

lol, I'm good friends with Chris and spend a lot of time at his workshop. He really does know his E36's and is very honest and great value on parts.

I'm reluctant to put another OEM cooler on there as I reckon it's just as likely to fail again in the future, especially if it gets disturbed.

[iguana]

Sniff nope never had an issues with mine & it got tracked a lot, temps were a tad high so put on the tds one = fine, new m3 again doing the high temps thing so again tds cooler will go on.

[d4cjr]

sniff diesel said:

pat_y said:

talk to Chris Ransley (E36 M3 breaker extraordinaire)good bloke, can be contacted at: [e-mail]

lol, I'm good friends with Chris and spend a lot of time at his workshop.


LOL. His Mrs would probably say he practically Lives there and infact he spends more time in my workshop than at work or in bed !!! were on the 3rd project allready this year now!!

[sniff diesel]

I've finally got something sorted, it's pretty easy to sort out once I found out where to go.

I've had this old oil cooler of a mate's old Ginetta on a shelf in my shed for a while:



Only a 13 row but the surface area is pretty similar to the stock cooler so I'll see how it does for now. I got some braided hoses knocked up by a local hydraulics place for just under £70. I could have used cheaper rubber hoses but I figured I may as well do it properly and have one less thing to worry about. To connect the braided hoses I got my old filter housing holes tapped to take a 3/8ths male union. You can see the original thread stripped in the small hole on the left:




The fitting come straight out of the filter housing so I can route the braided hose around and out of the way of spinning belt on the front of the engine just in case anything ever came adrift again. That's how my original oil pipe got damaged when one of the plastic clips holding in the original oil cooler came adrift.



I'm hoping to get it all fitted at the weekend so will post up some pics once it's done.