Defender radiator oil leak.

[cpas]

Good afternoon to you all.

I fitted a brand new Britpart rad to my 200 TDi Defender yesterday, but I have an oil leak from the oil cooloer connections. The old rad had the connection from the rad soldered into the tank with the threaded part being screwed fully home against a stop. The new rad seems to have large brass nuts holding the female thread into the tank, and a threaded insert which seems to be adjustable and therefore has no natural stop. The large threaded nut seems to be slightly loose, allowing the oil to leak from behinsd this. I am planning on removing the whole assembly again to check on how tught they are, especially the bottom one. Has anyone fitted one of these before? Can you advise me on how tight I should do these nuts and how the whole thing goes together? Will PTFE tape be OK with oil?

Many thanks for you time!!

[cpas]

..initial response from Britpart - "We can't talk to you, we don't deal with the general public". Thanks a lot!!

[230TE]

cpas said:

I fitted a brand new Britpart rad

That's your problem right there.

Trying to be more constructive... there are two different types of oil cooler pipe used on Defenders. Early ones have rounded ends, later have square shouldered ends and an O ring to seal them. Changeover was around 1992. Pipes connect to the oil cooler using a double ended threaded adapter. The end which screws into the oil cooler has a tapered thread. New rads come without the adapters (because there are two different types), so presumably you took them off your old rad. How tight should they be? Pretty tight. A wrap of PTFE tape round the threads will help.

If you have the later type pipes, make sure the O rings are present and in good condition. The earlier type round ended pipes don't seal brilliantly but should not actually drip oil out, just get a bit damp around the unions after a while.

HTH

[cpas]

Thanks for the advice.
Mine is the earlier type with the rounded connestion. The new rad did come with new adaptors but the connector into the tank of the rad was loose. I would have expected them to be tightened in the factory!! I have now tightened these up and used PTFE on the tapered thread and all now seems to be OK!!!
I know Landies are supposed to leak oil but....