How to repair leaking oil cooler

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03 svt

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Yes sounds fine. I hope it's not a head gasket. But it is in fact pouring oil and coolant from the weep hole
 

03 svt

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Took the I'll cooler off tonight. The entire assembly was already loose and floppy. There was a tear on the orange o ring on the shaft that the filter threads on to. I think that's the whole issue. It ran way to good to be anything worse
 

03 svt

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Yea. I ordered it a while back. Just now getting around to doing It haven't been driving it since I noticed the oil leak though
 

03 svt

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Anyone know the size of the o ring for the center shaft? Mine tore during the install. It really looked to big
 

pdube1

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Hi,

First of all, thanks for this thread! :)

My car has been stored in a cold place all winter long, it was freaking cold this winter here. So yesterday it was time for the oil change, I started the engine to warm up the oil before to proceed to the oil change.
I jacked up my car, drained the oil and removed the oil filter. At this time, no sign of water leak at all.

It was now time to put the new filter back in. So I took the new filter, screwed it in with hands and all of a sudden, the water started to drip around the oil filter. At this time I started to panic thinking that the metal around the filter cracked while screwing the filter back in.

After some reflexion, I decided to put new oil in the engine anyway and started it to see if it would be worst or not, to see if at least I could get to the nearest garage for a fix.
At my surprise, as soon as I started the car, the leak stopped, no water drip anymore! So I parked the car, stopped the engine and let it sit for a while. Go back under the car to see if it started to leak again, and nothing.
At this time, I understood something was wrong, but I was not able to understand why there was a leak when engine was stopped and no leak when engine was running, that makes no sense to me??!!

This morning I started to read about this issue and found this thread. Happy to see that at least, the metal is not cracked, it is a "common" issue and it is possible to service this oil cooler. :) But still I have some question, I'm not sure I understand everything written in this write up.

So here are my questions:
- Could it be possible that the leak happened because the filter stud came loose somehow? If the o-rings in the oil cooler are "sandwinch" and everything is old together with the filter stud, could it be possible that tightening this filter stud a little bit more would just compress the o-ring and then get the o-ring does his job? [I read elsewhere that some fixed the leak by tightening the filter stud]
- It's not clear to me if the filter stud has normal thread or not, to unscrew it, do I have to go counterclockwise (normal thread) or clockwise?
- Once the oil cooler is removed, how hard it is to separate all parts apart? I'm not sure I understand the procedure using "rubber stopper" with air to blow the heat exchanger out.

I will most like have to repair it and order that O-ring kit. Hopefully I will be able to do it by myself.

Thanks
 
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pdube1

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Send me a pm I'll walk you through it all.

Hi SilverNotch,

I ordered the o-ring kit from SpeedConcepts yesterday and Ken provided me very clear instructions. I understand now how this cooler is built and how to disassemble it.

The only thing I'm not quite sure yet is about draining the coolant (from the t-stat housing only? What is the petcock, a radiator draining plug?) and how to fill it back. For this, I will do my homework before asking for any help. :)

Thank you.
 

SilverNotch

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There is a pet **** drain on the passenger side of the radiator as well as a drain plug near the driver header on the engine block to drain.
 

Yellow_rag

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Yellow rag, if u r still on here...

This may be a long shot since this is an old post, but do you think the swaybar is a Steeda? It would be a larger than stock diameter. The reason I ask is because when I installed my Steeda swaybar for the 03/04 cobra, it hit my oil cooler and split the water line to the thermostat housing. I am now leaking oil from that area, which is how I found this thread.

I have been talking with Steeda to try and resolve, so I wanted to let them know I may not be the only one with this problem. I bought the swaybar, endlinks and swaybar brackets all from Steeda. I could not get it to fit right and have since put the factory bar back on. The only thing I kept on was the brackets (which btw, are wonderful!), because the factory ones bent.

Anyway, I want to tell Steeda about your situation so I can help them fix their design for terminators. If u know what endlinks are, or were on there, that would help. I think the Steeda endlinks are too short. Steeda ones only have a top nut and a bolt head on the bottom. Factory have nuts on the top and bottom.

And once again, more kudos for the write up, I will be testing it out soon.:thumbsup:

hey man, just saw this. Dont know if you're still on!

I'm not sure if its a Steeda sway bar or not, but i hate it. Its a dark blue, close to Sonic Blue. Was not only hitting my oil cooler but hitting my struts, and my inner wheel rims. I had to cut the ends shorter with a hacksaw.

I put 1/4 in spacers under the sway bar mounts to fix the oil cooler clearance problem. If i run across a stock sway bar locally I'll swap it out.
 

dpj99cobra

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Any tips on getting the oil cooler off? Mine is getting hung up on the top fitting. It will wiggle and move like crazy but will not come free from the top. I'm open to ideas...

FYI: I have the Speed Concepts kit ready to go on just struggling to get the cooler off so I can disassemble it.
 

SilverNotch

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OK, what kind of cobra are you doing the rebuild on? My 01 did have any issues coming off. Did you already remove the shaft?
 

dpj99cobra

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OK, what kind of cobra are you doing the rebuild on? My 01 did have any issues coming off. Did you already remove the shaft?

2004. I got the shaft out without a problem.

I had to use a pry bar to get mine off and lots of force.

That's what I'm thinking is going to have to happen. Did you pry from underneath or get at it from up top?
 

pdube1

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Did you pry from underneath or get at it from up top?

Has much as I can remember, I had to pry from top and wiggle it a lot for the seal to pop out, it is more accessible from bottom for hands. I remember that it was also hard to put back in with the new seal.
 

dpj99cobra

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After much effort I finally got my oil cooler off to do the O-ring job. It would appear that part of the flange had broken and probably was also causing much of my struggle to remove the cooler itself.

Anyway, now I need a replacement adapter flange. I believe this is the most current part number for it but it is shown as N/A from the Ford parts search sites. F8ZZ-6881-AA

If you have an leads on where to locate this part I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks.

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