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  #1  
Old 04-14-2003, 11:25 AM
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Help... 617A oil cooler leak

My oil cooler has sprung a leak and I need to fix it. (duhhh) problem is.... this thing is NOW my daily driver. Well.. ok... as of RIGHT NOW; cause of the leak, my bicycle is my daily driver.

Nope.. no busses and taxi ride there is close to 30 buks each way.
Weather is ok today. Dont know about tommorow. Getting to work on bike will be iffy??? (4 lane road no sidewalks, no alternative route) but making it home after getting off work at around 9pm is reaaaalll iffy. Oh well.. u do what ya got to do.

Plan A: ... I got JB weld on it and a light bulb resting next to it to help cure. Its early afternoon so it wont be ready till tommorow morning ifffffff it holds. I have to be at work early tommorow morning.

Plan B: will do even if A works. Replace cooler. What make, year model etc. would be simular esp. when it comes to mounting system.

Plan C: Have this one welded. Is it alluminum?

Cooler is mounted Verticle in this vehicle though it could have been horizontal in the donor car. about a foot in length and 4 or 5" wide. both ports for oil are on what is presently the top of the cooler. If anyone has pics of their oil cooler I can point out which one it is. I'll try to get a pic of mine.

Any suggestions besides get a wife or girlfriend so I have a way to work. (Any cute Mercedes 4x4 kinda sweeties out there who likes a nice guy, works with kids, professional? )

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  #2  
Old 04-14-2003, 12:18 PM
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You put JBWeld on it THEN ask us for advise ?

I love that stuff ... and with certain conditions , have no doubt it CAN fix it... whether it WILL is different...

One major question is : WHY did it develop a leak where it did ? Is your mounting bracket loose, broken , etc.. where the oil cooler is being allowed to vibrate ? You must fix any structural cause to have a chance for the JBWeld to work...

On pressure systems... I never expect the JBWeld to work BY ITSELF.... I use it to attach a patch of some kind... I usually use brass shim stock ...like 10 thou....I have tractor fuel tanks still holding after 30 years,,, when they had rusted through.... ( I have always loved Goos )....

Cleanlyness is a major factor in using stuff like this... you did not say what if any processes you used... sometimes brillo pad is enough.. sometimes I use phosphoric acid ( metal prep )...

It will cost you WAY less to fix this than to take on a wife or girlfriend...
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  #3  
Old 04-14-2003, 06:53 PM
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A lot of people on this site will dislike this, but a simple coupling that joins the two hoses together, bypassing the oil cooler, will solve the problem. I know many people are big fans of oil coolers, but when Mercedes put this engine in their commercial vehicles, they did not include oil coolers.
Someone with more information on the oil passageways could comment on whether plugging the outlets of the hoses at the oil filter housing would work.
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  #4  
Old 04-14-2003, 07:18 PM
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Well, it should certainly get him to the weekend where he will have more time to address it ....
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  #5  
Old 04-14-2003, 07:39 PM
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We had a leak at the oil cooler hoses, but it didn't effect our daily driving. It was annoying (dripping everywhere), and we had to keep a close eye on the oil level, but we certainly didn't park it until it was fixed. As for the repair, we found someone parting out his car(s) and bought both the hoses and the oil cooler for pretty cheap. As it turned out, when we got things cleaned up, the cooler itself didn't need to be replaced. So we now have a spare, which I could offer to sell to you, but it's probably easier to find one near you.

I'd give you a lift, if you lived closer.
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  #6  
Old 04-14-2003, 07:51 PM
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You are cute Natalie... but lets say this more directly... It is often helpful to say in one's profile where one lives...
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  #7  
Old 04-14-2003, 11:29 PM
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thanks all

Thanks for the lift Natalie!!

My leak .... aint just little... say maybe a quart per 5 minutes. How it came about is. Sun. I was searching for the possible oil leak that was coating the underside of my engine and front axle. I thought hmmmm..... maybe the oil cooler hoses were not properly sealed with pipe thread when the engine was removed a year ago to do a clutch job. (yup.... its a pain.. but the easiest way to do the clutch job is to remove the cab and engine.) It made since to me since the oil leak was most definately from that general vicinity. I took a wrench to the oil cooler line and begun to apply a little force to remove it from the cooler ... I instantly did not like the feel of what was moving and worried about potential damage to the cooler so I stopped pretty much immediately. So immediatly I assumed I had done nothing at all.

Later that evening at about 10pm, I cranked her up to drive to go get a fast food dinner . As I backed out I saw a puddle... and a trail following me... I killed the engine then jumped out. yanked the hood and low and behold... what may have been my initial leak (quart every couple 100 miles?) was now a gusher.

I'll drop a line Tommorow and let yall know if the JB held. A local import junk yard has ONE car with a 617A in it. They are going to measure the cooler and see if mine is the same as the one in it. My motor actualy came from a test stand at a Technical University in Germany. It may have never been in a vehicle. The cooler..... who knows what it came from but the bracketry is all custom designed for it and mannnn would I rather find the same cooler than have to redo the bracketry. The previouse owner is a professor at the university.

I thought about the pipe to bypass the cooler. I am 20 milessssssss from any place that would have a short piece of pipe and even further if the threads are metric. Would the threads be metric? Is there a metric pipe thread? I would like to put a piece of the right pipe in the rig for emergency's.
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Help... 617A oil cooler leak-no-engineorcabsm.jpg  
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  #8  
Old 04-14-2003, 11:57 PM
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Quote:
It is often helpful to say in one's profile where one lives
Oh yeah, you're right. I guess I just assumed he was from Texas like everybody else. Maybe you're my neighbour coachgeo! In that case, be ready by 6 am.

Good luck tomorrow! Let us know what happened.
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  #9  
Old 04-15-2003, 12:17 AM
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Well Leathermang says ur cute so I'll start hitch hiking now and maybe by 6am Tuesday a month from now I will be close enough for you to pick me up anddd... ahhhhh take me .......

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To a nut house, funny farm, institution of higher thinking.. all the same.

Im in Ohio... land of the mud and. ahhhhh.... well..... ahhhh ......... more mud and.... a dieing towns
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Help... 617A oil cooler leak-lonely-cabsm.jpg  
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  #10  
Old 04-15-2003, 12:31 AM
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I would have guessed by what you said about metric/distances that you were in the MapleLeaf Hinterlands....LOL...not Ohio.... and that looked like a heavy duty backwoods truck....
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  #11  
Old 04-15-2003, 12:34 PM
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JB to da Resquw

Well so far JB weld has stopped the leak. I'm going to look for a pipe to have as a spare incase problems arise again. Still looking into a spare cooler too.
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  #12  
Old 04-15-2003, 02:34 PM
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Remember that the oil cooler has a thermostat controlling flow (it's in the filter housing). So with cool oil, the leak may *look* like it's stopped with JB Weld. But when the oil gets up to temp and starts flowing through the cooler under pressure... who knows what could happen. I would not drive the car like that. I'd try the hose bypass route if you can't get another cooler fast enough. Good used ones are hard to find, especially since the fittings are often damaged upon removal. Good luck...
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  #13  
Old 04-15-2003, 02:38 PM
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The comment about the thermostat answers one of my questions. If the oil can be blocked from flowing with a thermostat, it probably wouldn't harm anything to block the lines where they exit the oil filter housing. That might be easier than joining the lines at the oil cooler end.
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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13
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  #14  
Old 04-15-2003, 07:58 PM
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Unless you are in really hilly country and load that baby up alot I don't think the oil cooler gets much use on these cars. I may try to get a reading on it one day after running it hard.
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  #15  
Old 04-15-2003, 10:00 PM
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Damn I lied again

I got to stop doing this. It appears that once again I lied. The thing is still leaking. Lost about 2 quarts in 50 miles. I spent a good hour calling around... no one has metric threaded pipe fittings. Least no automotive parts house. They acted like I was nuts. "metric pipe"? "whats metric"?

I'll try again tommorow. I hate to do it but it sounds like Ill have to cut these nice fittings and run a piece of pipe into the hose and clamp it. Cource the hose diameters are two different sizes so this probably wont work either.

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