The old oil cooler on my daily driver 15º ABA had at least 60,000 miles on
it when I bought the engine. I used that cooler for about 8 years (sorry.
No accurate mileage). Some time after the cooler O ring started leaking, I
replaced the cooler. My guess is that by design, maybe, the failing O ring
gives a person a chance to at least inspect part of the cooler. My cooler
had some cracks starting at O ring area. Image:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8vVSmhGpVnPhpgyq1

close up

https://photos.app.goo.gl/aGHZESQCy2ikwmzq1

In part, based upon list advice, I replaced the cooler. The new cooler has
been fine for at least 15,000 miles. That said, other than signs of
coolant/oil mixing, I don't know what warning signs one would see if there
was an internal failure developing.

I'm sure its possible for a manufacturer to make inferior parts or have a
run of inferior parts. WBX coolant expansion tanks come to mind.

I had considered installing an external cooler on this swap I'm busying
doing but my other ABA seems to be fine with the stock oil cooler.

We'll see if I eat my words here but I'm confident the stock oil cooler on
this next swap will suffice. Oh that reminds me  < adds cooler to parts
list >

;)

Neil.

On Tue, Oct 24, 2017 at 9:42 AM, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com>
wrote:

.....
>

> Of course everyone that has had an oil cooler failure will post at how
> unreliable they are. There simply isn't a 100 percent failure rate unless
> something is wrong. Yes they sometimes fail but so do tires and we are
> giving up on them yet.
>
> I for one do like to replace them with a direct to air cooling system, an
> external oil cooler.  .....
>

>
>
>
> > > From: Neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
> > > Date: October 23, 2017 at 22:46:50 CDT
> > > To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> > > Subject: Re: Oil heat exchanger fail.. more
> > > Reply-To: Neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
>
>

> > > Did you buy that 2 year old cooler new?
>

-- 
Neil n

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