Adding a sandwich type oil warmer to the Mirage

[teoman]

In my country engine coolant is NEVER changed. I wonder if it is cooked and needs more frequent changes.

[Taylor95]

Originally Posted by teoman

In my country engine coolant is NEVER changed. I wonder if it is cooked and needs more frequent changes.

I've heard that it needs to be changed at least every 7 years. Coolant can become very acidic (perhaps from the breakdown of hydrocarbons) and corrode your engine.

[101Volts]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

I've heard that it needs to be changed at least every 7 years. Coolant can become very acidic (perhaps from the breakdown of hydrocarbons) and corrode your engine.

When I got my 1990 Mercury in August 2014, it had coolant as brown as mud and I changed the coolant about 5 - 6 weeks later; now the coolant has brown flakes floating around.

[Daox]

Last night I removed the oil cooler/warmer from the VW oil filter assembly thing (not mine, but the image below).





I think I may be able to reuse the bolt that held it on as an extension tube. I am thinking I will cut off the inner tube, and weld an M20 nut, or a cut up an oil filter (for the female threads) to the end of it. That should create the extension that I need. We will see. Its cold out and the motivation isn't all there, thus no actual pictures.

[Daox]

While I figure out the oil warmer mounting situation, I would also like to look at the coolant plumbing. The coolant system in the Mirage is pretty simple. There are two lines coming off the head. One goes to the throttle body to warm it up, and the other goes to the heater core to provide heat to the cabin. I can tee into either of these to run in parallel, or run the oil warmer in series with either of these items.

I'm not quite sure what I would like to do yet, but I am thinking that running it in series with the throttle body would be a good idea. It can go inline before the throttle and be fine. The throttle body uses much smaller hose than the heater core, but I really don't think that the oil warmer needs THAT much flow. Its sized for 5/8" heater hose which seems a bit overkill. If you look at the Honda oil warmer / cooler, it has a much smaller coolant hose size going to it. The other perk with using the throttle body hose is the proximity to the oil heater. They're literally right next to each other, so the hose runs would be short.

[Daox]

Alright, I cleaned up the oil warmer and the bolt from the VW. Here are some pictures.











And, with some brake cleaner, they got a bit cleaner.

The oil warmer measures a couple inches thick. I took a look at the oil filter placement, and there is room in front of it chassis wise. But, the lower radiator hose is going to be right in the way. Its definitely going to hit. I think it may fit by pushing the hose out of the way, but I think it'll be tight. Perhaps I can make a bracket to pull the radiator hose out of the way? We'll see. This is the next thing to look into.

[California98Civic]

I think running them in series (oil warmer and throttle body) is a good and simple solution.

[Daox]

I messed with things tonight. I found out that the VW bolt / tube thingy is a 3/4-16 thread, not a M20x1.5 like the OE Mirage filter uses. I'm thinking about just switching to a 3/4-16 filter though. I can't imagine there is much difference. What do you guys think? The filters for my Prius spin right on, and they're a little shorter too...

[Hersbird]

Funny I saw this today because I plan on doing just the opposite this afternoon, pull the oil cooler off my kid's 2007 Impala cop car. It's leaking like crazy from somewhere on that line and the cooler is only used on the 9C1 police package with the V6. (The SS V8 also has one). I only hope it is as easy to remove as these pictures show. My 2003 6.0 GMC also has one of these I think is where my oil leak is on that as well, but as it tows I think it's worth fixing. I hadn't thought of adding an oil warmer to that, that may be a good idea if I need to cut a leaking line out anyway.

[Hersbird]

Well the Impala one came off no sweat and as a bonus didn't require and additional parts and drained less than 1/2 quart of oil. Pull the filter, put a 1" deep socket on the "nut" of the threaded sleeve the oil filter threads onto. Tread that out and under it was the regular factory "nut" and filter post was underneath. So just move it out of the way and thread the filter back on. I do see a NOS factory system is $600 on ebay (the list on the part is $950!), so maybe we should pull it all off and clean it up and try and get $100 for it. This style doesn't work as a warmer as it has it's own little air cooled radiator mounted in front of the regular radiator so there is no warm coolant covering the coils. Here's what the ebay one looks like