Brief Description: Oil cooler gets tapped and flushed
My first thought today was, "Dang it. I really don't want to remove my oil cooler." However, now I'm thinking, "Thank GOD I did!" So I removed the cooler, drained the oil, and decided to ditch both aluminum fittings for steel ones that are on the way. As soon as I removed the cooler I saw that my cooler attach tab was jacked up! I had bent it severely forward when torqueing the fittings. WOW> I'm glad I removed it now. I was able to straighten it out easily. I then removed the leaking fitting and decided I would tap it as far as I could to get a new set of threads. I tapped it upside down this time in order to keep aluminum shavings from entering the cooler, BUT, after puting a flashlight to the hole I noticed a TON of shavings inside from the first time i tapped it. WOW. Even pieces 3/4" long! This would have really affected the performance of the cooler not to mention that stuff floating around in my oil. I went with a redneck flush and hooked up a high pressure water source to flush it all out. a lot of aluminum and oil came out. I did this till the water was crystal clear. I then put a heat gun to the cooler to dry it out. After I return from my trip down south, my fittings should be in the mail and I'll be re-assembling the unit. To confirm the new tap, I sent the picture to Pacific Oil Coolers who approved the tap job. Rather than spending $275 for them to do it :) So this was another lesson learned that what can SEEM like a bad thing can turn out to be a VERY Good thing.
