What's the best way to try and clean out the oil cooler with it still in the car?

[J.HK]

There was a post a few weeks back about a guy who said his cooler was all packed with sound pad material. Curious how he got decent access with it still in the car.

I was thinking about trying to blow compressed air into the top of the cooler from the top. The bottom is pretty easy to get to....

Thanks,
J

[carnut169]

When I replaced the motor on my RX7 I flushed out the oil cooler with oil.... it was done in a shop so I just took the oil rail and fed the cooler's intake and let the oil come back out the other side. When it was just clean oil comming out the oil cooler was flushed!

[emcon5]

I think the post you mentioned was talking about material sitting on top of the cooler, blocking airflow through it, not junk inside the cooler itself. Accessing the top of the cooler can be done through the wheel well with a partial engine drop, the proceedure would be the same as changing the engine thermostat with the moter in the car. I remember this coming up a while back, you should be able to find it in the archives.

Tom

[GIBSON]

J. you could do the compressed air thing from the top if you removed the shroud piece that covers the cooler. If you have a 73 or later car, that's pretty easy to do. The 72 and earlier cars
would be much harder to get to the cooler top and the shroud
has a different design.
Compressed air would probably be your best be to flush out large chunks. You'r not going to get pieces that are bound up in the oil, that would take a solvent of some type. I've squirted brake clean down in there with some success (mostly at making a big mess). Of course, I'd keep all oil lines attached and protect any other parts of the engine from particles that you're going to dislodge with the compressed air.