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MG MGA - Oil Cooler

Have fitted a 5 bearing MGB engine into my 1500 MGA. Three questions:-

1. Where exactly do I position the Oil Cooler on the apron just behind the grill ?

2. Do I just drill holes in the apron and bolt the cooler down or is there some sort of stand that the Cooler sits on ?

3. Can't see an easy way for the Oil Cooler pipes to be routed past the rad ?
A Stojanovic

The oil cooler pipes pass under the radiator, as shown in the factory documents.

Image attached.


Mick

M F Anderson

Just wondering why you need an oil cooler in the UK climate? I have run the 5 bearing 1800 in my 1500 spec car for 14 years and never get the temperature above 175 to 185 in the UK.

Steve
Steve Gyles

I am with Steve - our 66 MGB came with an oil cooler and I found it to be useless for anything other than being in the way and having to remember to block it off in the winter (usually half way through) and then remove the blocking in the summer (again, usually half way through). We live in the Puget Sound area of Washington state, so our climate is not very different than that in the UK.

Just for the record, we twice took the MGB on 5000 mile trips through the southwest in mid summer and I didn't see that the oil cooler made much of a difference. I finally took it off and haven't noticed any difference whatsoever. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Dear A,

It seems that your oil cooler pipes are coming out of the top of the oil cooler (and not out of the bottom). I have this arrangement on my '56 with an 1800 engine, (and before that with the 1500 engine) and run the pipes over the right hand side of the rad mount, i.e. to the left of the incoming air hoses for the heater. I put a pce of plastic pipe over the hoses, about 2 inches long, to prevent chafing at the highest point. With the hoses correctly positioned the bonnet closes without a problem.

As to mounting, check out the Workshop Manual where the drill pattern for the apron is shown, as the oil cooler was an accessory.

Frankly, the oil cooler will not change your engine running temperature.

Peter.
P. Tilbury

Check Barney's site for the instructions...to make it neater, two holes will need be drilled just beside the radiator, and the pipes routed through there.
Gary Lock

Ok - so the consensus of opinion is that the Oil Cooler is pretty redundant.

What is the best way to block off the holes where the pipes connect to the Block ..?

Thanks

Aleks
A Stojanovic

An oil cooler should always be used with a bye-pass thermostat since in cold weather it makes no sense to further cool the oil, in fact it's important to get the oil quickly up to running temperature. In summer my engine will go to 200F or above on a hard motorway run so I'm happy to have an oil cooler then. I've often wondered how some owners manage to keep their water temperatures so low, as with Steve above since it's generally acknowledged that the MGA radiator can be a bit marginal at times - has the 1800 better waterways than the 1600/1622?
J H Cole

John

I am convinced that cooling boils down to having an original spec radiator core (sorry for the pun). I noticed no difference in cooling between my original 1500 engine and the 1800 which I transplanted in 2000.

My conviction is not without foundation. A neighbour back then had a 1500 that always ran hot like yours. His had a newish radiator (source unknown) when he bought the car. He went through everything on his engine cooling system, checking waterways, flushing out, changing thermostat, fitting an electric fan, oil cooler etc, all to no avail. While I had my radiator out during my transplant to the 1800/5-speed I lent him my radiator. Instant success. Down came his running temperatures to my levels. He promptly took his radiator over to Bob West and exchanged it for one of Bob's 'close to original' spec radiators. Success. He never looked back and off came the electric fan and oil cooler.

Hard motorway driving normally gives me just under 180.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Aleks, you don't block off the "holes" in the block. You use the original pipe that connects to the filter. The oil cooler is just a longer version of that pipe, via a radiator.
Gary Lock

Aleks

My car didnt have an oil cooler when I first got it, it has an 1800 MGB motor like Steves and it always ran between 175 and 185 degrees F on average.

I fitted an oil cooler complete with thermostatic valve a couple of years ago in preparation for a summer tour over the high French Alpine passes when I thought the cooling system may be a bit pushed to cope.

My car has no bumpers fitted and so I mounted the oil cooler beneath the duct panel instead of its usual place on top of it in front of the radiator. I had to make vent hole in the Sebring style front valence to get air to the cooler.
( I have always wondered about the effectiveness of fitting an oil cooler in front of the radiator which then feeds the heat straight into engine cooling system)

It seems to work fine and the thermostatic valve means that the oil cooler only works when the oil reaches a high temperature.

So my oil cooler works as a kind of back up to the water cooling system but doesnt visibly reduce the running temperature.
To be honest, you probably dont need the oil cooler here in the UK as I have noticed that it only operates here on the warmest days.

If you are looking to bring your running temperature down, the one item that can make a noticeable difference was fitting an injection moulded cooling fan. I got one from NTG services and when I fitted it, the temperature gauge dropped 10 degrees.
It was really effective but it is also MUCH noisier than the original metal one.
I believe that there are asymmetric plastic fans now available that are not so noisy.

Colyn

c firth

Some of you guys seem to be under the misapprehension that an oil cooler has something to do with water temperature. In fact it has very little to do with it.

Unless you have an oil temperature gauge you literally have no idea what the oil is doing, and guessing that it is similar to coolant temperature is just plain wrong. I've seen engines with water at 190 and oil at 260.

The factory standardized the oil coolers for one reason - to save money on warranty claims in North America. They later decided that the gutted performance of the single carb RBB didn't need them as they weren't likely to be used the way the twin carb engines might be so once again reverted to no cooler.

Delete them at your own risk. If you drive like a LOL (little old lady) you probably won't have any problem. If you drive in a spirited fashion you might well have issues eventually. I run coolers on all my MGAs. You can take the hoses underneath or notch the plate beside the radiator and use rubber grommets to get them through that way.
Bill Spohn

I would agree with Bill - it all depends on your driving conditions. I live in an area where in 30 miles you might find 30 feet of level ground - the rest of the time you are either going straight up ( no grading here) or straight down. I have found an oil cooler to be essential equipment on my 1800V MGA.
Bayard
Bayard DeNoie

Bill and Bayard

Sorry if I was giving the impression that water temperature and oil temperature were the same thing.
I did know that oil temp is usually much higher than water temp.

However, cooling the oil must help take some heat out of the engine which has to be a benefit especially if the engine is overheating.

This is why I have my oil cooler under the duct panel with its own vent in the front panel so that all heat taken out of the oil escapes under the car instead of directly into the radiator.
Also, I fitted a thermostatic valve to my oil cooler so that it only operates when the oil gets very hot.

Colyn

c firth

This thread was discussed between 07/04/2014 and 09/04/2014

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