<VV> Oil Cooler Crud

[Joel McGregor]

Clean is good.
Update - I removed the oil filter/alternator bracket.  No junk.  A little coating of soft sludge in low spots but nothing hard or floating around.  I did find that it has a Blue Streak 15x oil pressure switch.  I couldn't find any specs on it so I just put a different one on it for fun.
I did put a pressure gauge on it and ran it a little while.  On the fast idle cam it runs 42psi cold.  It dropped to 38 after it ran long enough to get pretty warm - I was running with no belt because I didn't feel like putting it all back together.  Of course the oil pressure light doesn't come on until it's run long enough to get the oil good and hot.
When I get more time I'll pull the pan and see what I find.

Thanks!
Joel McGregor

-----Original Message-----
From: VirtualVairs [mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of Smitty via VirtualVairs
Subject: <VV> Oil Cooler Crud

Smitty Says;  Sorry to be so late in responding to the oil cooler thread, but it's cold in the garage and standing out there to study publications is not my idea of fun.  Here's what I am writing about.  Having debris or chunks of anything in your oil cooler is a very detrimental to the life of your engine.  The routing of oil goes from the pump, through the filter, through the cooler, and then to the engine bearings.  So you see that if there is anything adrift in the cooler it will be pumped straight to the crank, rods, and lifters un filtered.  In the interest of changing from a 8 plate to a 12 plate cooler I have obtained used ones and put them in service.  I have used everything from carb cleaner to gasoline and a high pressure water flush and still found them to be passing foreign objects. 
You simply can not over do the cleaning of that part, especially if obtained from salvage parts.