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Oil Filter adapter with ports for Auxilary Cooler, Can they be plugged?
Recently bought a 1990 F350. 7.5 with an Automatic. It has leaking oil cooler lines, amogst other problems, but at the moment I am trying to figure out what to do for the oil leaks. the hydraulic lines somebody made up for the cooler are on there insanely tight so regardless of what my next step is the cooler is off so I can work on getting the lines off on a bench. My question is can I bypass the cooler and plug the two ports on top of the oil filter adapter? I have seen some pictures of Oil Filter adapters with the flat circular bosses for where the cooler lines are supposed to go but they were not drilled, Obviously that is not the case with mine. I would be interested in plugging the ports but didn't know if it would restrict oil flow. Do I need to just loop a line instead? This won't see heavy loads so I am not concerned about Oil temps at the moment.
Here's a couple pictures of the oil filter adapter. My plan is to ideally remove the 90 degree pipe fittings and simply plug them assuming there is no restriction in oil flow.
Not sure of the flow inside that thing, you may have to make a loop if you want to eliminate the cooler. On my 460 conversion, I replaced the cooler adaptor with a Ford Motorsport remote filter adaptor. My donor engine was from a 1990 F250 so same as yours. I mounted the oil filter behind the front bumper.
On the 460 trucks, the crossmember is chamfered for the adaptor and IDT the hole is big enough to just put the filter on straight. On my truck it wasn't but mine is an F150 that originally had the Six.
In most cases you unscrew the nipple from the adapter that accepts the filter & screw that into the block, then use a regular filter.
But the pic is to small to see if there are flats on the nipple that would allow it to be unscrewed.
There is a Hex Key inside the nipple for removal. I don't believe there is enough room. Only maybe 3 inches and I find it hard to believe a 460 could use a 3'' tall filter.
Main question now is do I need to get a hydralic line made to loop the adapter or can I plug it. I don't want to spend the $100 for the Ford adapter although that is the best option.
If plugging it works, that would mean the cooler flow was in parallel to an internal bypass, and that would have effectively reduced cooler flow to zero as the oil would take the path of least resistance (seems unlikely). If there is an internal bypass, it would likely be a restricted opening so as to ensure the cooler still saw some flow: I wouldn't want to intentionally use a restricted opening to feed my engine oil. So, I doubt you can plug the cooler line ports and still have oil flow (no internal bypass), but in the event you can (internal bypass, likely restricted), I think that you will should run a hose loop in place of the cooler.
The short filter Scndsin referred to is the Motorcraft FL820S. I don't know if it would fit or not.
This is what I did on my 95 E350 with 460 engine. I did this to rid the possible issue of the cooler leaking coolant into the engine oil also I had to take it off to replace timing set, so It got bypassed.
I used 1/2" copper pipe and brazed it together. DO NOT SOLDER, it may not hold up to pressure and heat.
1st cut off the offending cooler with hacksaw or sawszall, Then drill out the ports for the 1/2" copper pipe to fit. Braze it together. I lost the brazed photos...
Been running for 9 months with no issues at all.
Photo of how it looks in relation of original cooler.
Thanks for all the replies. I'll end up ditching the hydraulic lines and just use barbed fittings and running the lines to the cooler or run a loop. Either one should be a fairly easy fix. Not sure why ford used Hydraulic lines in the first place as the system should never see more than 50 or so PSI.
10-22-2018, 10:21 PM
