Oil cooler question

[mcbride89]

Okay so driving home from work the other day, look down and boom no oil pressure. I shut the car down and there's oil everywhere.

I looked today and there are two soft lines going to my oil cooler. I don't know if these came with external coolers and don't think they'd use soft lines. Anyway, one popped off and would be the reason I have no pressure. I cleaned up the line, put it on and re tightened it. Can I block these lines?


Just curious here.

 

[rdomeck]

Sounds like you have a 90 oil filter housing on your car. They used an external oil cooler. The 91-92 used a sandwich oil cooler between the oil filter and the housing. The factory 90 oil cooler lines had some soft lines from the housing to the chassis and then hard lines from the chassis to the oil cooler.

You can by bass the oil cooler with some soft line, but your still in the same boat. I installed a 90 OFH a couple months back and I believe I spent about a $140 on lines and fittings to make everything work. This was using all AN fittings. You could use some power steering hose to replace the hose you are currently using. Don't use heater hose and I would caution against using fuel line as neither hold up very well to oil being pushed through them.

Ask yourself this....Is a $140 worth the piece of mind knowing that those hoses will not pop off again and ruin your engine? They are 20 years old.

 

[mcbride89]

The oil filter housing

The line. Now it looks like the PO did use an oil cooler from another car because the hard lines look cut and filled in with soft lines to make it too the housing.

The external cooler between the bumper

I hate how they thought soft lines would be a good idea with how much pressure is in these lines

 

[rdomeck]

Yeah, your gonna need to redo all that. I hate seeing hose clamps on something as crucial as oil coolers. When they fail they take out engines......

 

[G]

You need some of these with new lines. click

 

[mcbride89]

Well I'm seriously hoping my engine is okay. Well find out in a little when I pour new oil in there and check for leaks.

I'm going to just plug the holes and ditch theset up in general. My mechanic told me I'd be fine running it like that. But Jesus why are people so stupid

 

[rdomeck]

Pretty sure you can't just plug the lines. Oil comes from the oil pump to the oil cooler and then returns to the engine. $200 seems like cheap insurance to have an oil cooler and know the lines aren't going to break!

 

[rdomeck]

click

try some searches on here....

+90 +OFH

 

[FlyingEagle]

If you have to have the car on the road in the meantime, I see the following parts that could be swapped out/modified to keep it safe until you get it really safe.

1 - Those hard lines pictured have no bump/flare at the end to keep a clamped piece of hose from slipping right off. get someone with a flare kit to add a bubble flare or partial double flare.
2 - Get some good quality fuel hose and use fuel injection clamps to secure them in place, they are designed not to dig into the line and for use on small hose sizes.

Get your AN stuff on the way and then install it when the time comes.

With cold weather oil pressures like they are, it's not surprising that the weakest link (no bump at the hard line and wrong style clamps) was the cause of this letting go.

If you fill with oil and don't get any debris down below, only time will tell the ultimate story, but more than likely you are okay.
A long time ago as a teenager I once drove a car a good 14 kilometers on the highway before I realized I had not re-installed the motor oil, I turned around and drove it home. Previous oil was synthetic.
Filled it and drove that motor for another 10,000 KM's before a rod bearing started to make serious slapping noises. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/uhh.gif I can only guess that you will be fine.

 

[mcbride89]

Ughhh exactly with the bumped fittings...

Well here's the story as is... I put the line back on after cleaning it up. Primed the system by pulling the MPI fuse I believe it's called and started her up. It knocked for a minute which I expected after that line blowing. I let it go and it went away. Let the car warm up and shut her down. I decided to see how it was at driving speeds of 40-50mph and drove to my parents house a mile away. Noticed a slight knock around 3500rpm.. Went n shut it down at my parents. I sat in the car with my mom, started up, oil pressure at right around 25psi, like normal idling. I go and throw it I first and barghbom car dies. Won't turn over.

Wtf!!!!

Seriously 1 mile?!?!!!

 

[rdomeck]

Sounds like your in for an engine rebuild......Sorry to hear. You can pull the oil pan and start checking things out, but if it's not turning over thats a really bad sign!

 

[misterfixit]

get a flare tool and flare the ends of those banjos. then loop them together. It'll be less scary if there's a flare on there.

Rich

Quoting mcbride89:
Well I'm seriously hoping my engine is okay. Well find out in a little when I pour new oil in there and check for leaks.

I'm going to just plug the holes and ditch theset up in general. My mechanic told me I'd be fine running it like that. But Jesus why are people so stupid

 

[mcbride89]

Exactly what I was thinking. I got pretty posse off. Threw my keys half way down the street ugh mom asked what's wrong and trying to explain to her the motor just let go was like talking to a wall but I love how supportive they are even now I'm all grown up lol

I guess the next step now is do I build a built motor or do I source one of these engines from say jdmenginedepot.

Ant

 

[rdomeck]

It can be discouraging. I drove my car 400 miles after purchasing and the engine blew up. Decide on a budget first and go from there. If you have never rebuilt an engine it may not be a good idea to start on one that has been starved for oil.

 

[mcbride89]

I've done some timing work on a 4g63 and head studs and cams and such. I've built 20 valve Yamaha motors when I was in my bike scene and it's not too hard. Thing is, living in an apartment complex where they frown on you for touching your oil... :/ my friend Lou owns procom race systems(you guys should check them out btw) he's built and blueprinted so many ej257's and 4g63(4)'s that I trust him to do a great job.

So I can go the route of a high compression 2.3 or whatever.. He's picking the car up in a few hours.

Also if you guys are on Facebook you should like his page, when they hit 1000 likes theyre giving away a Cobb accessport or equivalent in gift card.

 

[FlyingEagle]

"If you fill with oil and don't get any debris down below, only time will tell the ultimate story, but more than likely you are okay."

I guess I didn't see where you had posted about any knocking yet. Was suggesting that to know if the oil pan was full of shavings/bearing babbitt material.
Either way you would have been in roughly the same spot assuming bearings worn out from friction of lack of oiling layer.

Now time for a tear down and see what happened. Hope the swap goes well. Sorry to hear the motor did not hold up.

You will now have to flush/replace the oil cooler if you plan to install a motor to it again. I suggest a straight replacement with proper lines for 100% assurance there will be no further motor contamination due to bearing and or crank materials floating in the oil.