Today I worked on the baffle that mounts under the engine and the oil cooler. When I mounted the oil cooler, part of the cooler would cover the access hole for the oil drain plug, and I’ve seen that some guys cut out the oil cooler for this hole. I was a little afraid to do that so instead, I added an extra inch to the rear of the baffle and mounted the oil cooler an inch or so farther back – seemed to work ok.
One thing I screwed up on was that I didn’t pay attention to the hole when I bent the baffle for under the engine; I ended up bending it the wrong way so the3 slots for the mounting holes were in the wrong places. I thought about straightening it out and re-bending the right way, but instead, I just made the slots bigger so it’ll work - an easier fix.
One thing that was kind of weird, even without extending the rear of the baffle, there is a big piece of aluminum that sticks down from one half of the engine block that is directly in the way. This ’tab’ was right in the middle of the baffle and it would have had to bend around this tab – although the oil cooler can't bend. To fix this, I just ground down a good 1/4” off the tab.
