Oil cooling options...

I'm sorry I may have touched a nerve. I don't know your magazine. I wasn't referring to magazines that are the labor of love, written by folks that know and love their subjects. I am referring to "buff magazines," usually targeting men, such as those found on Barnes and Nobles newsstands -- glossy stuff with lots and lots of expensive four-color ads. Photography, and stereo, and bicycling, and musical instrument, and (no surprise) automobiles and stuff like that. I'm talking about magazines owned by large publishers, like Primedia and others which own a stable of magazines. The publisher rarely has any particular love of the subject matter, is motivated by profits. They are not inclined to suffer any writers or editors who might offend an advertiser.

Thankee!

It's my fault. I took off on a tangent.

No harm at all. But your comment in the cylinder honing thread about me asking so many questions has made me wonder if others feel the same way. Perhaps I am abusing the kindness of the group, and I need to look at that. I am not in the position of possessing enough skill or knowledge about VW things that I feel that I can contribute in any useful way. I have been very much enjoying the experience of learning how to maintain and repair this vehicle, but it would not be such a nice experience if it was at the expense of others.

Nah. You can quit asking questions when you have one that I can answer. Must be one in there somewhere, so keep trying.

................Your questions and the answers that follow are examples of what this group should be all about. If we didn't have you Mike, we'd have to entertain each other with threads about Bush & Kerry, jeep fires, top posting vs bottom posting, jetta coolant leaks, trikes vs bikes, tanning booths, Chevy vs Ford, etc., etc.

I am not in the position of possessing enough skill or knowledge

...actually you are contributing in a VERY useful way. You are actually interacting with instruction with an eager and inquisitive mind. You ask questions...this is good. You are a rareity, and as such you have met with a positive response from most on this newsgroup. This is what those of us who have been, there/done that come here for. The nice thing about an inquisitive mind is that it opens alleys of discussion.. these channels sometimes branch...and when this happenns the the cappilarie flows of knowledge contribute to the whole. Thus an innocent query from yo,l followed by questions seeking clarification, can lead to a torrent of information benefitting all. For exampl your recent head discussions brought forth the knowledge to me to check carefully the machining on teh pushrod tube cups on the heads. As often as I have prepped heads for installtion. this simple area has been long overloooked. In fact I have compensated for it without ever seeking the true source. I accept the unspoken admonishment and have learned. =-) The completion of the cycle wil be when you can with confidence contribute to teh group. Those of us who have been here several years have watched a peoples knowledge grew...as they gained skills and confidence to this point.

.....and the wheel turns round,

...gareth

Don't sweat it. You are not teh only one benefiting from your questions and their answers. Lots of eyes are following this saga, picki8ng up pieces of useful information for their own projects. Keep asking.

Jan

Well said ..Gareth and Jan. Just look a all the Bob Hoover comments that have been put forth. I've followed this group for many years and it seemed like it was becoming a flame war heaven, then Mike ( RJS) Elliot posted into this group with not only great questions but a remarkable ability to express himself in a fresh and sometimes humorous fashion. But most of all Bob Hoover has put out the most info I have every read from him. When was the last time you every saw more than one Veedubber reply posted on a single thread in the past? Thanks Rocky and everyone who keeps this great Newsgroup alive. Hey Rocky did you get the Articles I sent you?

"Wild" Bill and "Blondie" Tucker

President and First Lady Rare Air VW Club Pensacola, FLorida

'78 VW Bus ( "Old Rusty" )

'76 Bug "The Grape"

'69 Squareback , Arizona car, Automatic, "Blondies' Car"

'67 Squareback

Rare Air VW Club Website:

or

On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 23:54:26 -0400, "Tim Rogers" ran around screaming and yelling:

what, no honorable mention of me?...you didn't say a word about threads chocked full of personal insults... JT

*I* got indirectly mentioned at least twice. Jeep fires and tanning booths. But then we all know I'm Tim's favorite. *batting eyelashes, turning nose up in air*

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 09:27:42 -0400, Shaggie ran around screaming and yelling:

tim does adore you, ya know? JT

....................Well, I did think about you when I mentioned top posting...........

...........Besides, I have learned not to go out of my way to annoy you unless I'm feeling really really feeling combative.

:-)

timmy

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 01:37:25 -0400, Gary Tateosian scribbled this interesting note:

Which is what we all are here for, is it not?

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

Having looked at the info I've been presented, it seems to me that most of the oil cooling schemes that involve abandoning the stock cooler are a compromise of some sort. If you machine the oil pump for a full-flow setup, that's best for filtration but presents the problems that Bob outlined for the cooler. There are ways to do this right, but they aren't cheap or easy. If you tap off the cooler ports, the oil doesn't see the filter until it's warmed up and the pressure comes down a bit.

It seems to me that the best solution, if you can do it, would be to separate the two, and have a full-flow circuit for the filter, and remote-mount the cooler from the stock cooler ports. A thermostat/fan setup on the cooler would compliment the arrangement, and you could keep the full-flow lines short.

Walt

On Sun, 6 Jun 2004 10:06:49 -0400, "Tim Rogers" ran around screaming and yelling:

i thought of that *after* i posted...heh

now tim you've hurt me big guy... JT

[snip-a-roonie]

I did, Bill, didn't get a chance to thank you right away. It's an excellent article, not tough reading at all, but far more informative than the usual dumbed-down stuff. Several light bulbs when on over my head as I was reading it. I can't do anything practical with the information right now, because this engine is not destined (this time) to be opened up, but I have a /much/ clearer understanding about the role cam timing plays. Sure would be nice if it was as easily adjusted as ignition timing.

The only problem with the article is that it ends with a cliffhanger: it only takes you as far as the output of the cams as measured at the tappets. Continuing out the push-rods and over the rockers and down into the valves would have been nice. It ends with a "watch this space," message . . . editor's lips probably got tired when he was reading the article and figured the readership would blank out, too. I can't imaging that Bob Hoover would not have written the rest. Near as I can tell, blank paper must last about as long in Bob's house as it does in Stephen King's.

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Dear Walt,

One of us is reading something wrong here.

The internal oil cooler was responsible for premature failure of the #3 exhaust valve in all engines from 1300 on up.

Going to an external cooler resulted in an engine that ran better and lasted longer. It ran better because you could use a distributor that was not retarded (you had to replace the mainshaft) and lasted longer because #3 stopped necking down the exhaust valve after only 20,000 miles.

That's with a stock engine and the installation was clearly an improvement, not a compromise. Indeed, Volkswagen eventually did pretty much the same thing and for the same reasons. With engines that are NOT stock the question of compromise is moot. It's not just a VW engine with bigger jugs as the instant experts like to tell the kiddies, it's actually a new design. It's up to the guy building the thing to ensure the oil cooling system is adequate.

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Whoa! You don't have to do any machining of anything to modify the pump. The outlet of the oil pump gets tapped to accept a suitable plug. Tapping a hole isn't machining any more than driving a nail is building a house. To 'machine' something means you've chucked it into a machine tool and twirled the knobs.

The crankcase is not 'machined' either. Here again, you simply pull the plug, drill out the hole and tap it to accept the return from the filter. (There are several web sites that show how this is done. Lotsa nice pictures. No, I don't recall where -- I already know how :-) -- but I'm sure somewone here can point the way.)

That's it. All done. Your engine will now last AT LEAST twice as long. And no oil cooler involved.

The presence of a full-flow oil filtration system makes adding an external oil cooler a simple chore but installing an oil filter doesn't automatically mean you have to install an oil cooler.

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The above is one of the reasons for this response. Firstly, you seem to have oil filtering and oil cooling locked together and secondly you appear to think adding a filter is a difficult and expensive task. It isn't. Look at some of the web sites. Or read Bill Fisher's book. Guys started doing this to their bugs as soon as that Ford report hit the street, back around 1957.

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This says you missed the whole point -- that you don't understand the basic concept involved (and was the main reason for this message).

'Full-flow' means exactly that. The full output of the oil pump is passed through a filter.

Anything else ISN'T 'full-flow'.

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Now there's the crux of the matter. Because that IS how you do it. And how VW does it. And Ford. And so on and on.

Oil filtering and oil cooling are two completely different issues. The fact you MAY take advantage of the one to install the other is a quibble. Volkswagen of Mexico installed a Subaru-type full-flow oil filter on all air cooled engines built since 1991. The stock dog-house oil cooler remains in place, unchanged, and works just fine... with the stock engine.

After-market filter/pumps are available but you should inspect the unit very carefully before you buy because the quality is really pretty awful.

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....and have a full-flow circuit for the filter, and

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Any mention of 'stock cooler ports' causes me to suspect you're talking about an early engine with the upright oil cooler. If that is the case, instead of even thinking about an after-market external cooler you'll be miles ahead of the game to simply convert to a dog-house cooling system. It means tracking down the right parts (and don't forget the barrel nut!), some of which are no longer available ( the infamous 'Hoover Bit'!) but this system is by far the best way to go for engines up to about 2000cc.

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Allow me to roll back the curtain a little farther, to give you a wider view of why I run an external cooler AND a dog-house cooler.

As preamble: In normal service a VW engines spends 98% of its life producing about 25% of its peak-rated output, typically between 12 and 15bhp. The other

2% of the time it is asked to deliver more, when getting underway, accelerating, climbing a hill and so forth.

With that 98:2 ratio the engine should give about 2000 hours of service.

The tricky bit is that wear responds to one of those inverse-cube rules: Double the output, the wear-factor goes up by 8x. That means changing the ratio even a little bit, say, 95:5, you're looking at only 1200 hours of useful life. Which is okay, if you can afford it.

Getting To It: Hauling a heavy load in a bus fitted with a big engine is no problem. Indeed, the outboard gear boxes on the early bus make it a dandy prime mover, assuming your engine can feed it enough torque and you don't crack the tranny by popping the clutch. Haul a boat down to Baja? No problem. But climbing some of them grades...

Climbing a steep grade (16%) during the heat of the day, heavily laden, I'm going to use up a significant portion of the engine's useful life. If I had one the CHT was surely well into the red and the oil WOULD have cooked itself to charcoal... were it not for that huge external cooler, the blower going full blast and a host of modifications that liberally floods oil out to the heads, sprays it all around and sucks up a ton of heat.

So the fifteen minute grind up the El Rosario Grade costs me mebbe 2500 miles of cruising across the flatlands. That's okay. I knew the grade was here and I knew the demand it would place on the engine. I build my own engines and do my own head work and KNOW how much I can ask from an engine. And for how long. Most folks don't. For any of that.

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I apologize if my casual mention of the engine in my old bus caused you to draw a number of erroneous conclusions. It was mentioned only to illustrate the fact that even with a dog-house oil cooler, with a big engine there are times when additional oil cooling capacity makes good sense.

-Bob Hoover

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PS -- Threading a hole with a tap or a rod with a die or drilling the hole to begin with... these simple skills are part of every mechanic's core-knowledge. They come bundled with a host of details having to do with drilling and tapping and threading that would fill a fair sized book (and has). If you are a mechanic you probably began to acquire these skills as soon as you were big enough to handle the tools, probably between your sixth and eighth birthdays. You were never 'taught' any of this in the usual sense nor were you some kind of slave labor, you were simply lucky enough to have a dad or grandfather who felt that being poor was no excuse for being ignorant and believed a broad education was best. That attitude cause you to be raised up as no stranger to greasy fingernails (and how to avoid them) along with Emily Post, Shakespeare, Adam Smith and a shot of Sun Tzu just to liven things up. You came out of it knowing how to ride and drive and shoot and cook and sew(!) and which corner of your calling card to bend, along with being able to repair or even build the guns you used and the machines you drove (or flew!) as well as the engines in them.

One of the saddest days of my life was when I came to understand that not everyone is raised in that fashion.

--rsh

I thought the cooling surfaces in the doghouse type 1 cooler and the type 3 coolers were exactly the same. The type 4 cooler is larger.

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----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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