[DeTomaso] oil cooler

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/9/08 17 13 36, boyd411 at gmail.com writes:


> How complex is it to hook up an external oil cooler?
> 
Getting a traditional air-to-oil cooler to work in a Pantera is next to 
impossible.   Some Pantera vendors sell kits that place one of these coolers behind 
a louvered panel in the wheelwell, but their effectiveness is highly suspect, 
and probably nil.   

Thomas Tornblom, Tomas Gunnersson, Jack DeRyke, Jason Eaton and others have 
successfully adapted the Laminova-built Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor 
water-to-oil heat exchanger (which is both an oil HEATER and an oil COOLER, 
depending upon the circumstances) into their Panteras.

Here's a short blurb w/photos from Jason's website:

http://www.jasoneaton.net/2008/04/oil-sandwich.html

Chris Difani and I have decided to attempt to generate a bolt-in kit 
utilizing these coolers.   Just today I went trolling the junkyards in Sacramento and 
found two of them; we have quite a few more that are coming to us shortly from 
junkyards across the country that specialize in Crown Victoria police cars.

We are still sorting out the mechanics of installing them in the Pantera.   
Most people have stuck them in the engine bay, which requires completely 
re-plumbing the water lines, and moving things around on the firewall.

With Chris' car on the lift, we poked around and I noticed that there was 
ample space to put the thing right behind the radiator.   You know the two short 
metal pipes which reach up from underneath the car and curve towards the 
radiator outlets?   It would be fairly simple to hack the middle out of one of 
those, and substitute the cooler in its place.   Brackets would be needed to 
secure the cooler to the underside of the car.   Short flex lines would lead to the 
bottom of the car, and then hard lines (same size, and parallel to the brake 
vacuum pipe) would lead to the engine bay, where two more flex lines would 
lead to the sandwich adapter at the oil filter.

We have a ways to go yet; after we have a stack of coolers in-hand, we'll be 
dismantling them, replacing seals where necessary, pressure-testing them, and 
then we'll be using Chris' car as the guinea pig.   Stay tuned! :>)

Mike


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