re
I keep in mind that whatever I do to "improve" a
vehicle should not make it more venerable to failure through poor design or
faulty execution..."

Bingo !
I'll say ...
whatever you do, it has to be bomber good ..
and easily bypassed ( like out on the road )  in the event of some failure.

I do like tencentlife's oil cooler quite a bit.
Being fan-boosted only makes sense..
might be grinding up some long grades at pretty low air speed sometimes.

that hill south of Maupin ..heaing toward Maupin =
5 or 6 miles long. . I was towing a vanagon up that hill at night with my
1970 mercedes gas sedan ..
I was 'stuck' at about 25 mph in 2nd, couldn't pull 3rd.
Man that was a long grind ..
no body around, finally started doing wide zig zags to 'slightly' ...very
slightly,  reduce the effective grade.

so in cases like that..
say 30 to 35 mph air speed...
for 10 minutes or longer....electric fan on the oil cooler sure sounds right
to me.
Motorcycles..btw..
have that size fan , on modern water cooled ones........an easy part  to get
in motorcycle junk yards.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hanson" <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: Extra Oil cooler?

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Chris S <szpejankowski@gmail.com> wrote:

> Cry once. Get the real thing.  Spend some money to protect your
> investment.
>  I recommend  Mocal coolers from BAT Inc. I run one myself.
>
> Chris.
>
> Wysłane z iPhone'a
>
> Dnia Jun 14, 2011 o godz. 12:40 Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
> napisał(a):
>
> >  Hi all, I'll put the question at the top of this post, then add some
> > details below..
> >
> > It occurred to me I might use my Vanagon rear heater as an auxiliary oil
> > cooler.  Yes/no?
> >
>

  thanks to all who responded.

  I shall NOT use the extra rear heater..Not designed to handle the pressure
is the main reason...as some pointed out..

  The fan package for that heater may yield some useful parts...if I select
a cooler that is close to that size from a real oil cooler
manufacturer...and there seems to be a few more than I was aware of when I
wrote my first post, referring to BAT and Mocal as my only choice.  I'll
take some pics.  it is coming on summer, somewhere...

  Boy, there are certainly a lot of fittings and adaptors to page
through.    I enjoy fabricating relatively simple straightforward mechanical
systems such as an additional oil cooler.. I keep in mind that an extra
system adds complexity.  I keep in mind that whatever I do to "improve" a
vehicle should not make it more vunerable to failure through poor design or
faulty execution...so thanks all.
  Don Hanson