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110 air cond to oil cooler?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2004 5:36 pm
by discokid
Ive ben told that its fairly easy to modify the air conditioning cooler to cool oil for my auto gearbox

Does anybody know if there are any differences between the air cond cooler and an oil cooler (except size). If not it seems sensible as the air cond cooler is all ready mounted correctly etc to do the job

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2004 10:22 pm
by RUFF
I have heard of people using air condensers as coolers before but not realy sure how well they work. Pressure deffianatly wont be a problem.

Off Topic but have you removed the under dash aircon section from your 110?

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2004 10:39 am
by discokid
I will be. Im not planning on running air cond

Thanks for your advice

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2004 8:24 pm
by RUFF
Reason i asked about the under dash section is i need a set of Vents out of one if your interested in selling them? Or even the entire under dash section?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 4:42 pm
by discokid
Ruff

Might hang onto for now. The guy that is helping me but the 110 owns a rover parts supply business. I might be able to use it as a trade in on other goodies. These things must be rare your the second person who has asked

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 7:30 pm
by RUFF
No worries. Not so much rare. They never changed the system from the County. Its just easier than ringing around looking for one.

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:15 pm
by landy_man
Ruff..... are you looking for the small rectangular vents that are about knee high..

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 10:15 pm
by RUFF
landy_man wrote:Ruff..... are you looking for the small rectangular vents that are about knee high..


Thats the ones. There are about 4 or 5 of them across the bottom of the dash.

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:26 am
by rick130
the only thing I'd be concerned about is potential pressure drop across the condenser.
It's probably not possible to check without cutting things up, but I'd be intrigued to compare the tube dimensions of a condenser vs a 'real' oil cooler like an Earls or Setrab.l
Oil is a hell of a lot more viscous (thicker) than a refrigerant gas thats being condensed back to a liquid.

If I can find my Earls cattle dog I'll post some info. They have some pretty interesting info regarding pressure drop vs heat rejection vs size comparing different core designs. Basically, something like the old serpentine coil type coolers used for auto trannies were next to useless, next step up was the pressed 'dishplate' design which is very popular these days with OEM's, but a proper oil cooler, as used in most motorsprt applications easily outperformed the other styles, (2 to 3 times more effective) but obviuosly cost stacks more.

Rick.

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:54 pm
by discokid
Im really interested in performance. I just thought it was a good idea for two reasons. First the cooler is already mounted and second the size. But if size doesnt equal good cooling in this case I might give it a miss. Id be interested in the specs though