oil cooler upgrade on my 78 930

[sundevil64]

I'm sure this has been posted many times. I have decided to upgrade the oil cooling system from the trombone cooler to a carrera cooler I had from a known good motor. I flushed out the cooler with mineral spirits and let the mineral spirits sit over night and flushed it out again. It was pretty clean to begin with beside some oil being in the cooler. If you have spun a bearing like I did on my other motor you will either need to buy a new cooler or have the ones on your car cleaned. Pacific oil cooler does this in La Verne, CA.

Anyway, the trombone cooler was way inadequate for my 930 in the TX heat. For that matter if you are running a larger motor in TX and drive it spiritedly, then I would recommend upgrading to a larger oil cooling system. At some point before next summer I will most likely add a cooler to the ds fenderwell or a front mount cooler to provide adequate cooling in the summer heat. Also, a spal fan will be in the works by that time. If you plan well, you can do this all at once, but it is almost November so I should be fine for the upcoming winter months.

It's not a straight bolt on necessarily, I guess it could be, but I didn't want to drill any holes in the tub that weren't already there. The car is mostly a survivor and I would like to keep it that way.

First step is to soak the fittings from the hard lines to the trombone cooler with PB blaster or something along those lines. I did it repeatedly for about a day and again the next day. Use the correct size wrenches. I used my 34mm for the oil cooler and my ever correct size, old school 10" crescent wrench. Northern tool is a favorite for tools that are somewhat decent and cheap. HF is good to, but they didn't have the larger metric sizes at the time I visited.

Then I unbolted the trombone from the bracket that attaches it to the tub. The bolt should be a 13mm and the nut a 14mm and removed the trombone. Be sure to have a tub below to catch any oil and cover your brakes with a plastic bag to protect the brakes from any dripping oil.

As you can see I had some spillage.


Now more than likely you will have to relocate the horns. My horns had seen better days and I had some replacement horns, but I decided to use some Hellas that are on my other cars that are quite loud and compact and they are only about $56 on ebay. I had to fashion some extension brackets from some metal stock I had laying around to fit the horns in there nicely. I faced them down for water drainage. I will paint them later. Powdercoat would be recommended, but I don't always do what I recommend.

Here is a dry fit of the oil cooler bracket I acquired off of another car that I parted out that was conveniently the same color. Although you wouldn't know from the looks of the inner fender well.

I will tack weld this in place like it was in the donor car. That will have to happen later this week after some travel. Before I wrap it up, I wanted to make sure everything fitted somewhat like it should, so I test fitted the cooler.

For the top mount I will use an isolator to absorb some of the shock as the bottom attachment points of the cooler are also isolated. In the driveway is a rock guard drying with some rattle can satin on it.

If I am missing something please speak up before I finish. stay tuned. I hope to have this done before the cooler weather, but there is a front on it's way. It is Texas though I am am sure it will change shortly.

[Nickshu]

Yes you are missing the sheet metal surround frame that goes around the cooler. It fills the gap between be cooler and the fender. There is a padded gasket that seals the sheet metal surround to the fender so air is forced thru the cooler and not allowed to go around it.

In the below pic its the item on the right. Also keeps road grime out of the cooler fins.

[sundevil64]

I have that. It is also acts as the stone guard which has been repainted and is in the driveway. I do have to fashion something for a gasket, but that shouldn't be difficult. It's basically u-channel edging with rubber weather stripping glued to it. It was shot on the other car, but I have the u channel stuff that attaches the rubber gasket to the sheet metal.

[Nickshu]

Oh sorry. There is an actual part fof that. It's a u channel edging piece with pillow like black weather strip attached about 2 inches thick.

[javadog]

You're missing the bracket that attaches to the back of the headlight bucket and provides the attachment point for the rubber isolator. It's pictured in the photo above.

JR

[sundevil64]

Does anyone ave a closer picture of the upper mount? Thx Javadog.

[javadog]

It looks like this. Notice that it changes the angle of the rubber mount, relative to the headlight bucket.

JR

[DG624]

I do have to fashion something for a gasket

John, I replaced my oil cooler recently and used foam insulation for water pipes 1/2'' inner diameter. Works fine and fits nicely and it costs only about $.50. Try it if you can't find the original part.

[KTL]

Originally Posted by DG624

I do have to fashion something for a gasket

John, I replaced my oil cooler recently and used foam insulation for water pipes 1/2'' inner diameter. Works fine and fits nicely and it costs only about $.50. Try it if you can't find the original part.

My thoughts too. When I did some cleanup/restoration work on my '87 back in 2002, and parts were "cheap" due to the US vs. Germany exchange rate, I bought a new OEM Porsche surround piece. It's a nice piece but it just doesn't stand the test of time.

My car sees very little bad weather and really sits around more than it goes anywhere. The surround piece is already starting to deteriorate again. So go with the cheap pipe insulation solution.

[86 911 Targa]

Originally Posted by DG624

I do have to fashion something for a gasket

John, I replaced my oil cooler recently and used foam insulation for water pipes 1/2'' inner diameter. Works fine and fits nicely and it costs only about $.50. Try it if you can't find the original part.

Here's the original P/N.

It ain't cheap!!!$90.00

Our original (1986) lasted 104K miles/25 years.

Good luck,

Gerry

[kodioneill]

I believe you can buy that rubber surround piece from McMaster Carr in lengths.