Engine Oil Cooler

[Phil Holmen]

Upon changing oil and lube in the chassis in my truck I removed the front skid plake to access so grease nipples. I found that my oil cooler lines were severely leaking. I can twist the rubber with little to no effort. My question is if I would be able to run the winter without my oil cooler because I do no heavy towing or hauling in the winter monthes. The oil cooler was not installed when my new motor was installed due to back order on the lines. I run Mobil 1 Delvac in the winter monthes... Any ideas??? The reason I would like to run without the lines is have a fairly extensive amount of work I am going to undertake in the spring and would like to do alot of it then. I can then get better lines made up to help prevent this from happening again....

[ucdavis]

I'm gunna guess that if you can't, nobody could. Oil shouldn't reach 230+ degrees much, and you can probably assume the oil temp will be coolant temp + 20 degrees for the sake of monitoring. If you find yourself in the 210 degree range a) you should be thinking about where the trouble in cooling is if it stays in that neighborhood much, and b) start thinking about hooking back up.
There is an aftermarket set of lines that should give much better service than the Genuine GM parts @
Aftermarket 1/2" oil cooler lines from Lubrication Specialist, LLC 800) 306-4255 or http://www.lubespecialist.com/Order/order.mv
$115 & drop-in fit (you may have the 5/8" lines, so check; rumor was he's working on replacement for those as well).

[Phil Holmen]

The only reason I would also consider going without the cooler is last winter my coolant was only running 95'C on the gauge and I have a hard time keeping it warm in the winter since I straight piped the truck. It is already reaching -15'C at night with the daytime highs of about 0'C and I have seen -45'C a couple of times when I drive to work... I work in remote northern alberta most of the winter...