[Guest]

I have relocated my batteries inboard on the MH, I am looking to relocate the oil cooler up high out of the shooting range of the front wheel.
I found these pics of the oil cooler mounted upside down, is it OK to mount them this way or would it be better the standard way up?

What would YOU do?, I have never run a poll before other than a power pole...and that hurt

, hopefully this won't.

This is upsidedown

This is factory

 

[Guest]

yo monsta

there might be a trapped air problem...might need a bleeder at the top to get cooler full of oil....

 

[Guest]

Re: (slightly ducatic)

looks a lot cleaner

,, but you might run into some air flow issues though ....as for trapped air .. i do believe it's a pressurized system correct ??? if so the air will be forced out , then just top off ..
by the way your front rim is dirty

 

[Guest]

On the old SS the cooler is similarly mounted behind the front wheel. The couplings are at the bottom and it has no problem with air trapped in it. The only ownside I can see to mounting high on the MH is that it is at an angle to the airflow which might reduce its effectiveness slightly.

 

[Guest]

Re: (Derek)

I here what you say about the air flow however there is a titanic size airbox from factory which is like a huge air dam.

Now with the pods etc it is very open.

 

[Guest]

Re: (Monstaman)

For what it's worth, I've been running an "upside down" (that is, with the fittings on the bottom) oil cooler under the horizontal cylinder all year with no problems. I'll post a pic later, but the cooler was an eBay purchase (I now have 3!) designed for mounting above the cylinder. (I actually like the looks of the cooler in the lower position, and it makes me feel better about airflow to the rear cylinder.)

However, 1) it probably makes no real difference, and 2) like you said, with the pods you have a lot more open area now.

I have had no issues with trapped air, false oil level readings, or anything like that. The fact is, there's a whole bunch of air above the oil in the crankcase, so it's kind of a moot point. At worst, once the engine is running, whatever air there may be in the cooler ends up in the crankcase, which is vented to the atmosphere via the breather in the first place. I don't think you'd be pumping a big air bubble through the oiling system over and over... it's not like the closed-system coolant in a liquid cooled engine, where a traveling air pocket can create hotspots and can cause failure of water pumps, head gaskets, etc. It's also not like a hydraulic system, dependant on lack of air for correct operation. If that earlier post about ideal mounting positions for oil coolers is correct, and a vertical mount with one fitting above the other is good, then you'd still have the same hypothetical oil draining out of the cooler, right?

The only possible downside I can think of is that an oil cooler with the fittings at the top will "fill" with oil, thus exposing more of it to the cooling area between the reservoirs on each side, thereby increasing the actual amount of cooling. With the fittings on the bottom, the oil pump has to pump the oil cooler full of oil, in order to get the level of oil to the top and expose the same amount of oil at any given time to cooling. I'm not sure this happens; it may be that you only get oil across the bottom few runs. Then again, the oil cooler itself could hypothetically be colder in the first place, since there's less hot oil in it, there by increasing the cooling of whatever oil actually makes it through.

I don't think it matters. All I do know is that I have thought about this waaaaay too much myself.

Maybe Shazaam will chime in...


Modified by DesmoBob at 11:31 AM 8/10/2005

 

[Guest]

Your mounting of the cooler under the H cylinder makes a difference - oil does not flow uphill

Also, it's not an issue with the air pocket being pumped around and around the system forever in a cycle that I'd be concerned about, but rather the potential lack of oil pressure at startup when the bearings may be getting a shot of air instead of oil.

I guess this would only be significant if the cooler is between the oil pump and main lubrication points rather than on the return feed back into the crankcase. If the cooler simply cools the oil on the return back into the sump, then any initial loss of pressure should not be a lubrication problem. Worth a check in the manual to see where it's located in the cycle...

Even if the cooler is on the return leg of the oil cycle and there is no initial pressure loss after startup, you would have to consider how much higher in the oil level window the oil level should be to allow for the oil volume displaced when/if it drains back into the sump after the motor is shutoff. Filling the oil to the "normal" mark will be too low once the oil cooler is filled the oil by the running oil pump.

EDIT: Now, if someone who REALLY knows what they're talking about would jump in instead of me waffling endlessly about this potential issue, we may know for sure if it's an issue or not


Modified by Old Baldy at 5:05 PM 8/10/2005

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (Monstaman)

"What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler?"

Well I'd start with a candle lit dinner....

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (Capt. Home Slice)

Jeez, THANKS! Another coffee spray wipe-up on my monitor!

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (Old Baldy)

It should work either way. But! When you drain the oil out of the crankcase during an oil change, all the cooler oil becomes trapped in the cooler, to only then be pumped back into you new fresh oil! Mount them at the bottom and it all will drain back into the cases!

The cooler gets it oil after the fact in the circulation process. It's the same on the hypersportbikes.

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (Capt. Home Slice)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Capt. Home Slice »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">"What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler?"

Well I'd start with a candle lit dinner....</TD></TR></TABLE>

I had thought about that but we are out of candles.....would a gas torch do

So OK if the oil does not travel thru the cooler as part of a cold start and leave essential parts unoiled then if it is simply a return feed it should not cause any problems, can anyone confirm for sure that this is the case?

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (Monstaman)

I've installed aux. oil & tranny fluid on cars and can't really say the orientation of the couplings has/did make any difference; it's a pressurized system and the oil will get pumped in to the cooler one way or another, the couplings be damned. The only consideration would be whether or not changing the orientation of the couplings would somehow cause a restriction w/in the cooler and cause a low pressure situation w/in the crankcase.

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (hubert)

I would be concerned (with it upside down) that when the engine is off that it would OVER fill the crankcase (ie. after the oil has drained OUT of the cooler) and cause a start up problem, like the crank hitting oil ... ugly. This ofcourse would only happen if the cooler was high enough up that it would drain ... and in the first photo it looks like it would.

Otherwise I can see no issues, thus would the capacity of oil that the cooler takes OVER fill the engine crankcase?

Pete

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (PSk)

in hydronic air conditioning systems "air lock" is a very real phenomenon....air WILL be trapped in the top of an upside down fitting coil....oil pressure will not immediately push this air out but over a certain amount of running time the heat and pressure will "entrain" this air and carry it into the crankcase and out the breather...without a check valve the cooler at rest will drain into the crank giving a lower total system volume by the amount in the cooler (negligable in most cases) the up side to sideways or upside down mounting is that the cooler will also drain for oil changes....my best guess is that there would be air in the upper portion of the cooler for the first 5-10 minutes of operation and the result would be air bubbles lubricating the system until the bleeding is complete....hot oil will drain quicker making this a bigger issue with frequent stop/starts when hot....THE GREAT AND POWERFULL OZ HAS SPOKEN.....

 

[Guest]

Re: What Way Would YOU Mount An Oil Cooler? (slightly ducatic)

Is a "hydronic air conditioning system" open to the atmosphere?