With hot Texas weather rapidly approaching I’ve been tuning up my
A/C system.
Radiator rubber flaps…replaced last year
Freon charge…half a can topped it off nicely
Elec. aux fan…I just wired it to operate with an A/C aux fan relay
Mechanical fan…working fine.
Internal fans and flaps…all appear to be operating properly.
Which started me wondering, the only drawback to the system seems
to be adequate cooling at startup and slow, stop and go traffic.
At highway speeds it will freeze me out on the hottest of days.
My question is do I really need the oil cooler radiator at all?
It’s just sitting there blocking the airflow to the condensor.
Since I’m not driving up steep grades or pulling a trailer (Does
EVERYONE in the UK own one of those Caravans?) is cooling the oil
something I need to be concerned with…even on a 100deg day?
I was even considering going a step farther if I removed the oil
cooler radiator. How about adding a second electric fan in it’s
place (although I haven’t eyeballed that area to see if it’s even
feasible).
Any input or experience on the subject?–
Groove
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In reply to a message from Grooveman sent Tue 10 May 2011:
Groove…
My instinct FWIW is not to meddle with any of the XJ40 team’s
design! I must admit, though, that I have often left my parkers on
and left the car. Have been tempted to add under the dash a small
PIC based ‘ignition off/parkers’ on alarm…–
Alan (XJ40 3.6L 1987/8)
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In reply to a message from Grooveman sent Tue 10 May 2011:
Later cars with the 4.0L AJ16 engine did indeed do away with
the oil cooler. Installed in it’s place is a aluminum loop
that installs into the bottom of the oil filter housing that
simply routes oil out and back into the ports where the oil
cooler hoses on your car hook to the bottom of the filter
housing.
I have extras of these oil cooler elimination loops and
might be interested in a trade for your oil cooler bits.–
Steven A. DuChene - XJ6VDP XJ6C XJ12C XK120SE 3.8S E-Types
Phoenix, AZ Atlanta GA, NE Oh, United States
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In reply to a message from Grooveman sent Tue 10 May 2011:
Groove,
My solution (along with the slaved aux fan) was to replace
the thermal fan clutch with a fixed hub and flex fan. – Old
school muscle car stuff but it worked then and works now.
Yea, my '91 is not whisper quiet at low speeds - from
outside of the car - it is however still whisper quiet
inside the car.
Maximizes the air flow across the A/C condenser when it
needs the most help.
As for the engine oil cooler, Jaguar dropped the cooler and
replaced the piping with a simply ‘‘U’’ bypass and a union to
join the bypass to the original oil cooler adapter. Think
that was done for the '93 MY cars. A few years later they
went one step further and eliminated the adapter as well.
That adapter is sandwiched between the engine block and the
oil filter plate.
Undo the adapter, pop off the oil filter plate and with a
new gasket and shorter bolts, reassemble.–
91 XJ6, 97 Sov – Driveway needs another!
Tampa Fl, United States
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In reply to a message from Grooveman sent Tue 10 May 2011:
Groove
Here in Singapore its hot all year round and I have the same system
as you - ie have installed a seperate relay and switch which allows
me to get the aux fan kicking in whenever I want it and not just
when the rad temp gets up - when I did that then it certainly did
make a difference - the only time I turn off and leave to its own
devices is when on the expressway - most driving here is city
We need every bit of cooling we can get here and that includes, so
far as I am concerned anyway, the oil cooler which I think is
probably a bit more important to the whole system than a possible
couple degreees on the Ac
Reading the archives you will probably see that the general feeling
is that the whole AC set up on these cars is sadly lacking anyway -
whether there is an oil cooler or not - I also noticed a big
difference when I had the condenser flushed out recently - it had a
lot of what I can only describe as ‘gunk’ in it - needed some drain
cleaner type chemical to clean it out.
Here I run the system on mid humidity setting which does help the
temperature - if I run on max humidity setting then get a further
decrease
Also have found over the years that running the fans on low setting
when the weather is partucularly hot means colder, increase fan
speed and the temp actually goes up a little bit (assume that the
speed through the matrix on high is too fast to cool efficiently)
Would receommend leaving the oil cooler in place myself however it
appears to be something which is personal choice - my own reaction
to this whenever it comes up is that the Jag guys who put it there
MIGHT have known what they were doing - if they felt it was
necessary to have it there on a UK spec car (which mine is) then
out here where the ouside temps hardly ever go below 30C its
probably a good idea to keep it.
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In reply to a message from Grooveman sent Tue 10 May 2011:
Thanks all for the insightful inputs.
Alan, I agree that Jaguar did a wonderful job designing this
engine, and before I modify it I think I should first recite
the Jaguar mechanic’s Hippocratic oath…’‘First, do no harm’’.
…BUT…
Since they did away with the oil cooler on later model cars with
the same basic AJ6 engine perhaps they realized it was a design
overkill. I’m sure the engineers thought the self leveling rear
shocks were the cat’s meow (if you’ll pardon the cheap pun) and look
how that worked out.
As Steven mentioned, Jaguar eventually did away with this system on
the AJ6. Does anyone (Hello Bryan, are you there) in their
experience know if there are any major differences in the AJ6
engines with and without the oil coolers?
More and more I’m getting hooked on the idea of adding a second
electric fan (’‘We didn’t make the Jaguar, we just made it better’’)
in place of the oil cooler. Some people were born to ride, as my
photo album shows…I was born to tinker.–
Groove
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In reply to a message from Grooveman sent Tue 10 May 2011:
Hi All
I was wondering if the oil cooler system has any sort of
thermostat incoorporated - or does it just run the oil at
full pressure through the oil cooler whatever the engine or
ambient temperature is?
Here in Canberra our mornings are now dipping below
freezing, and the days not getting much above (at least, not
for long anyway). The (coolant) thermostat in my car
recently jammed open, so on a drive one recent morning the
coolant temp never got more than a whisker above dead cold
on the temperature gauge. Obviously my project for this
weekend is to replace the thermostat - however it made me
wonder what the oil cooler is contributing to this. On cold
mornings the coolant thermostat is doing it’s best to keep
the coolant up to a reasonable temp - but the oil cooler is
just hanging out there in the freezing wind doing its best
to turn the oil back into a thick frozen sludge.
I wonder if a quick fix might be to cut a piece of sheet
metal and attach it to the front of the oil cooler to blcok
the airflow during winter?
Jon–
The original message included these comments:
My question is do I really need the oil cooler radiator at all?
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In reply to a message from jgs900 sent Wed 11 May 2011:
Yes, the oil cooler adapter incorporates a thermostat.
Below it’s set point, oil is routed directly through the oil
filter, above it’s set point, the oil also takes a trip
through the cooler.–
The original message included these comments:
I was wondering if the oil cooler system has any sort of
thermostat incoorporated - or does it just run the oil at
full pressure through the oil cooler whatever the engine or
ambient temperature is?
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In reply to a message from Win sent Thu 12 May 2011:
Oil coolers from 93 cars onwards did not have the cooler fitted
only the bypass adaptor, if you are in a high heat/humidity contry
leave in place all others remove if you want, remember to fit the
bypass adaptor you need a long stud to fit onto the oil filter
housing, X300 cars never fitted and as far as I am aware not
problems have been encountered.–
Mick Gannon Daimler 4.0 1991 XJ40, D Six 1996 X300 England
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In reply to a message from Mick G sent Sat 14 May 2011:
Given there is 8 litres of oil in the sump you’d think that
unless you were towing a caravan at 100mph plus the oil
would have plenty of time to cool sufficiently whilst it was
sitting in the sump.–
The original message included these comments:
housing, X300 cars never fitted and as far as I am aware not
problems have been encountered.
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In reply to a message from jgs900 sent Sun 15 May 2011:
Ive removed the oil coolers and pipework from 2 Sovereigns. I
removed the sandwich block that the pipes connect to between the
oil filter and the block. You need to replace the 4 bolts with
shorter versions otherwise they bottom out in the threads. No
problems so far.–
jagmaddad
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