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MG MGA - Oil cooler?

Hi All,
will an MGB oil cooler and pipe kit fit my MGA which will soon have its 18v MGB engine fitted.
Thanks for any help.







s page

The hoses should fit your 18V engine fine but my advice would be to trial fit the hoses and oil cooler before you drill any big holes through the radiator duct.

If the MGB hoses are a little longer than the MGA ones then you should be OK.
If they are shorter then you won't get them to reach where the oil cooler has to be mounted.

I would call Moss and ask them if the hoses are identical.

Colyn
( I would also advise that you to fit the engine and radiator first as then you will be able to avoid fitting the hoses in the place that the other hoses should go)
Colyn Firth

I wonder if an oil cooler is really needed? I am a great believer in keeping the oil inside the engine as my experience with an oil-cooler failure resulted in a complete loss of oil! THat's the sort of thing that one tends to remember, as I'm sure the chap behind me at the time does.
Graeme Williams

I was waiting for someone to say it first. I am with Graeme on this albeit for a different reason. In my opinion if you need to resort to an oil cooler for an MGA in the UK climate for general road use you are merely putting sticking plasters on a heart attack. The proper remedy is to get a heart transplant - a new radiator to original MGA specification. They are available.

My 1800V runs nice and cool in the engine bay. I had to put a hotter stat in it to get the temperature up a bit. Speak with Bob West about the proper radiator core. Money better spent on a correct radiator than an oil cooler.

Said my bit.

Steve

Steve Gyles

Has anyone ever done a back to back test to compare the oil and water temperatures both with an oil cooler connected and without one?
It would be great to actually know if an oil cooler made a difference.

I have always wondered about the wisdom of fitting an oil cooler in front of the radiator as the heat removed from the cooler then flows into the radiator adding its heat into the cooling system.

My oil cooler is fitted below the radiator duct, it has its own cool air air supply via a vent cut through the front valence. So all of the heat from the cooler flows out under the car.
I have also fitted a thermostatic valve that only allows oil to flow through the cooler when the oil temp reaches 80 degrees C.

Sorry, picture of valence uploaded upside down.

Colyn




Colyn Firth

An oil cooler makes a huge difference.

If you live in a cooler climate and don't run the car hard, you can get away without a cooler on an MGB engine.

Hotter climates and harder driving mandate a cooler for long life. The factory fitted them in early 3 main production after having to pay for several engines in North American delivery cars - the high speed interstate highways were a different kind of use than home market winding roads.

I run an oil temp gauge in all my race cars and watch them faithfully. Get heading above about 230 deg. and it gets pulled into the pits.

The late single carb North American MGB engines were considered too gutless to cause themselves any harm so they deleted the coolers for them.
Bill Spohn

I had an oil cooler before i fitted my anti-roll bar. I removed the pipes because the bar ran right where the fittings for the cooler sit on the duct panel.

Removal of the oil cooler from the equation did not affect the driving temperature on a hot day, but on a cold day i reckon the engine temperature has risen by about 10C - which is good, because on cold days I was always struggling to get the temperature into a normal operating range. The cooler is still in place in front of the radiator so I don't have to do anything wth the holes in the panel.

You shouldn't need to fit an oil cooler, but if you do make sure that you include a thermostat in the oil cooler circuit.


Dominic Clancy

The B had a cooler fitted largely because the front crossmember shielded the sump from the normal flow of air as it does on the A.

In normal use, neither car actually NEEDS an oil cooler - if you are going to use the car to do hill climbs in high ambient temperatures or race then maybe it is a good idea, but ALWAYS fit an oil thermostat - over cooling the oil is worse than overheating it as the water from the combustion process that ends up in the oil is not boiled off - oils have additives to control that but they can only take so much.



Chris at Octarine Services

My idea of fitting an oil cooler under the radiator duct panel was for it to act as an additional engine cooing system in preparation for hot summer days climbing the high Alpine passes in Europe.

It seemed to work well even in 100F degree heat (38C) on my last 2 European trips.
The gauge would creep up to almost 200 degrees whilst climbing up miles and of steep Alpine pass in that heat but would quickly return to between 185 and 190 whilst on the level. (in the UK the temp normally varies between 175 and 185F)

For this year's trip to the Austrian Tyrol I have fitted a much more powerful engine but I have opened up the grille vanes a little more, re-sited the carb and heater cool-air vents a little wider on the duct as they were masking the airflow to the rad. And I have increased the size of the oil cooler duct through the front valance.

I have also for the last couple of years, run two 8" electric fans on the rad and have removed the engine driven fan altogether. This seems to work really well.

I have been told that the Weber 45 DCOE carb that I run tends to cause the engine to run a little cooler due to the way it passes fuel through the motor. Probably at the expense of slightly reduced fuel consumption though.

I am confident enough with this set up to leave the engine driven fan at home on our Alpine trip.

Colyn
Colyn Firth

Cold oil wrecks engines, which is why so much engine wear happens a startup. When I lived in Alaska everybody had a block heater for their diesel. We liked Wolverine products in gas engines. Good thing about a pancake oil cooler thermostat is it allows the oil to heat up faster. Never start up with cold oil.

https://www.kaltire.com/the-benefits-of-using-a-block-heater/

https://www.wolverineheater.com/default.asp



D mckellar

A block heater is probably overkill in the north of England (if South Yorks really counts as "up North" as it's pretty much in the middle of the UK) especially in an MGA which will probably never be used in deep minus temperatures experienced in Alaska. They are great in a modern car because the heater works immediately on starting the car too!

None of the MGA oil cooler kits seem to include an oil thermostat, but as Chris says, it's essential to prevent excessive oil cooling and resultant engine wear.
Dominic Clancy

I have to say that reading the above coupled with my fear of oil cooler system failure makes me seriously consider removing it. However, I don't think I can buy the coupling pipe which runs between the filter and the block. Alternatively I could use a flexible but that won't eliminated the possibility of flexible failure (although in that position it could be inspected more easily and therefore more often!
Graeme Williams

<<None of the MGA oil cooler kits seem to include an oil thermostat>>

None of the factory fitted oil coolers on midgets or MGBs had 'stats.
Dave O'Neill 2

Graeme, if your oil-cooler is installed and operating, just fit a blind onto it that you can just remove on the hotter days. It could be a simple clip-on cover or even some duck tape☺.

So you can be a kind of manual thermostat.

Colyn
Colyn Firth

Graeme,

If you want a solid pipe, I have some!
Chris at Octarine Services

Colyn: it's the issue of failing flexibles through poor quality manufacture that worries me.
Chris: I'll email you.
Graeme Williams

Chris (Octarine) could you email me with info please - can't find a contact for you. graeme at kingshillweb d*t com
Graeme Williams

Odd - always used to show mail on here - have changed options

website also www.octarine-services.co.uk
Chris at Octarine Services

Chris,
If you have banjo bolt for the oil filter/solid pipe, I am in search of one
Dominic
Dominic Clancy

Dominic,

I probably have several! I know the whereabouts of a couple, I'll put them in your box...
Chris at Octarine Services

Hi All.
Thanks for your comments. I think I read somewhere "B" engines were more susceptible to oil over heating for a reason I forget(Sorry).
Maybe to do with shielding of the cross member. As it seems this probable doesnt exist, in an A, I will try with out. I am not intending to compete in the A. I have ran oil stats on my racing Sprites but took them off and put on an oil temp gauge instead.
simon
s page

FWIW, oil temp usually has little correlation with coolant temp. Your water can be perfectly normal while your bearings are cooking.

I've seen 190 water and 260 oil in the same engine at the same time (yes, I run an oil temp gauge in the race cars).
Bill Spohn

Maybe we need what one of my modern sports cars has - it is a BMW Z4M coupe, and it comes without a water temp gauge but does have an oil temp gauge. The oil temp is connected to a variable red line indicator on the tachometer that tells you how high you can run the engine at a given oil temp.

It starts at 5500 and slowly creeps up as the oil temp increases - unless it is a hot day, it won't get up to the full 8,000 rpm red line (the engines use a 10/60 oil).

You should never run an engine hard until the oil is warm. They used to use an oil cooler 'muff' that covers the cooler in winter and can be pulled off in summer. That's not a bad idea.
Bill Spohn

I still intend to try running without the cooler. Despite Chris' generous and kind help (Octarine) I was unable to sort an original metal pipe because it took me a while to appreciate the significance that a spin-off oil filter made.
I now have a flexible and as soon as I get the engine back in the Frog I'll have a go at fitting it. At least that flexible will be totally visible end to end and will have no flexing in use.
Graeme Williams

I am puzzled

Since removing my oil cooler I have a solid pipe to the spin on filter assembly.

Why isn't this possible with your setup - If it helps I can take photos of my spare engine that is on the floor right now.

Dominic Clancy

Dominic - it can, but of the three types of steel pipe, the one that fits the spin off filter housing is the rarest - Barney has a pic of one on his website.

http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/engine/of100b1.htm

I have never seen one of these but have plenty of the other two types kicking around.
Chris at Octarine Services

I see. With the Moss spin on adapter the standard MGA fixed pipe works just fine.

Dominic Clancy

This thread was discussed between 11/04/2017 and 09/05/2017

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