Oil Cooler leaking...

[monkeyman]

Hi Guys, I hope the new year is treating you all well!!
I've got an issue with the oil cooler on my bike.. Recently had the engine out to fit a new gear box. Upon putting everything back together and firing her up oil started pissing out of the left hand junction of the oil cooler. I drained the oil and took a closer look to find the alloy has cracked. After 2 weeks of checking ebay daily i haven't found replacement. Does anyone know if there's a way to repair a cracked cooler. I was thinking of degreasing said area properly and trying to reapir it using Araldyte, any thoughts???
Alternatavely does anyone have one knocking around they don't want or knows of one in good condition.

Thanks

[diesel]

i dont have one and i really dont think there is a way to fix that kind of crack. ill ask me bro whos a pro welder and see what he says

[lewisdale]

chemical metal, there is another stuff you can get, quicksteel i think its called, ive used it on a car rad before and it sealed a big hole great, most good car spares shops do it

[monkeyman]

Thanks 'lewisdale'. I'll get down to a shop on Monday and see if i can get any of that stuff you mentioned.. Hopefully it'll b e able to sort the problem as atm i'm no position to ride my little crotch rocket!! 'Diesel' how come you don't have one; do the H models not have one or have you just done without? I'm no expert on the H models..

Cheers

[lewisdale]

thats ok mate, just make sure the area round the crack is perfectly clean fom any oil, and maybe give it a light rub with sanpaper to clean any loose paint off and to provide a bit of a "key"
from what i gather a lot of racers bypass there oil coolers, but dont know what effects this will have as to doing long journeys on the road etc, never really looked into it

[zimm]

I wouldnt use anything short of a TIG welder to fix it, they run at quite high pressure once the revs are up, and you dont want it starting to leak oil all over a tyre at 90mph do you ?

the ZX-4 uses the same engine (and a tiny H1 radiator) and doesnt have an oil cooler, nor does my race bike.. should be fine without, just make sure your fan comes on ok. It'll only be asn issue in town.

[monkeyman]

Thanks Zimm. I thought they were pretty essential but then always wondered why they didn't have a fan of their own, but i guess the radiator should keep the whole engine (plus oil) from overheating.
How do you go about by-passing the cooler, because as you say there are quite high pressure going through that area at speed?

[zimm]

I made some blanking plates from 3mm 6082 ally sheet and sealed them to the sump with high temp silicon gasket stuff .. anything along those lines really ..

luckily i've got several spare sumps, so could do the shaping/drilling on the bench, it'd be a fiddly mare of a job to do it on an assembled bike.

IIRC another forum user's bike just has the pipes to the cooler cut, and bolts sealed in the ends with araldite

[monkeyman]

Ok.. Sounds like a good solution to a broken oil cooler. The only problem i see with blanking off the inlet and outlet holes on the bottom of the sump that you'd surely be stopping the flow of the oil which would have been flowing through the cooler!?

[zimm]

afaik it doesnt all flow through the cooler.. im not 100% sure about the internal oil flow n stuff tbh, but it seems to work ok just blanking them.

[monkeyman]

Cool.. I'll get it sorted then. I'm missing my baby.. who says you can't have fun on winter roads, you just end up sliding the back a bit more