Aftermarket oil cooler, BTDT'S?

[Kent McLean]

Rbade12 at aol.com wrote:
> My oil cooler sprung a leak at the outside hose/cooler connection. I  took 
> the cooler off with hoses attached.....well, those hoses would not come off  the 
> cooler [steel to aluminum] I tried my best, but, ended up tearing the oil  
> cooler....so, I need a new one....and new hoses as long as I'm doing this. Does  
> anyone have any helpful information? Thank you!

When the oil cooler lines on my '89 200 gave up, I had my mechanic put
in a used cooler with lines attached, as their experience was that trying
to remove the hoses would kill the oil cooler.  A few months later and
the used one died.

I installed a generic oil cooler, sourced from the FLAPS.  It fit in the
space behind where the original was, hooked up with the supplied lines.
I think the connections, although not a perfect fit (e.g., probably
SAE-to-metric, not metric-to-metric), didn't leak. IIRC, the adapters
supplied with the oil cooler screwed into the plate under the oil filter.
You may be able to strip the connectors off the old hoses and double
hose-clamp them to the replacement cooler lines.

Plus I installed my replacement oil cooler horizontally, not vertically,
so air flow might have been a problem, but I never experienced it here
in NH.  YMMV if you live where it's hot all year 'round.

I had a write-up on the Audifans KB, but it disappeared with the change
over to the new format. And it's not on my current machine, so it may have
been lost to the bit bucket.

In short, be creative and make a 3rd party one fit. It worked for me.

-- 
Kent McLean
'99 A4 Avant, w/ quattro, V6, Tiptronic, :)
'91 200 TQA #1, backup car
gone but not forgotten:
'94 100 S Avant, "Moody", now with new owner
'91 200 TQA #2, up in smoke 2
'89 200 TQ, "Bad Puppy", up in smoke