Don't suppose heat would melt the sludge out; maybe bake it upside down in the oven for a few hours until it drains out? Go ahead and tell me I'm dumb, lol.

 

There a few threads on various sites I’ve been reading up on. Guys have tried ultra sonic cleaners, and various chemical cleaning. I haven’t found one yet where someone has successfully cleaned/flowed one on the bench.

I was thinking an ultra sonic cleaner myself in a few various baths. It might work, might take some time though. You’d need to set up a test bench to flow it / pressure test it. Personally, I have my doubts.

Im not sure heat would work on the silicates, might make it more ‘baked’ on (in). Might help though. I’d like to know how solid it is internally. Id like to get my hand on a few old ones to cut up, and start experimenting. Might have to do some junkyard shopping..

I think it would be an interesting experiment.

 

So, is the consensus that the OE replacement part is now cheap chinese junk and we might as well use chinesium or upgraded aftermarket instead?

 

I knew there was a reason for saving my original one.

I soaked it in Zep purple stuff for a couple days and it flowed noticeably better. Taped up the ports and stuck it on the shelf, that was 10 years ago. Need to rig up a flow bench.

 

I have tests from a video I never finished using my Fein vacuum and an aerometer checking three levels of flow. New, my 2010 clog was somewhat cleared of silicate, and my 2016 clog with debris in the intake port only. There was no silicate in that cooler, I now wish I had never cut that one apart. At that time, I should have tried to backflush, but the coolers were about $160 and easily found.

 

Since I've had access to a few different oil coolers lately, I decided to take some comparison shots. Maybe this will help a little bit.

Background:
Dorman- Used, came out of an excursion with 170k miles, I don't know when it was replaced. Seals looked pretty bad and I had to hammer it out of the cover and damage the cooler to get it out.
Ford/Navistar- Used, Purchased from a dealer a few years ago, worked well... until my engine siezed. Unrelated.
DieselSite- New, purchased a month ago when I got the ford/china one. I wanted to keep it on the shelf. I ended up putting it in the excursion engine so we'll see how it holds up.
Ford/China- Purchased new from dealer a month or so ago. Installed in my truck, have about 1000miles on it so far, mostly towing my 10k trailer. Issues early on, but that was my fault for not flushing the system properly. After backflush its running pretty decent temps. Not great but decent. Deltas get pretty wild but my EOT stays less than 220 towing 10k flat and less than 230 pulling a grade. I think my radiator has something to do with it too, its a cheap aftermarket one.

My conclusion, I'd rather run a dieselsite cooler than the new ford cooler. Looks better all around, even packaged better. (I am not sponsors by dieselsite, I actually had a negative experience with them recently).

Anyways, on to the photos.


The bottom stamping imprints (donut shape) appear similar between the dorman and ford/china... suspicious.








It's not really legible, but I did go through with red numbers and mark each plate to prove the count. Its hard to count by hand after about 10 plates in they all look the same and I get mixed up. The red numbers prove it though.

Hope this helps anyone trying to decide on a cooler.

 

I think it was over on the org in a thread about the oil coolers, I said I wouldn't be surprised if Ford were now getting the coolers from Dorman or whomever Dorman gets them from.

I also said that Bob may be repackaging the Ford USA coolers he got from Ford as his own, and when his stock runs out, they may end up being from China. However, there is a difference in the manufacturing process at the bottom between the Ford USA and Dieselsite construction. It looks more like the Ford/China build.

 

I fired up my older computer, where I have the oil cooler work I did in the past.

These are the two older coolers out of my truck. The image to the left was the cooler from the Ford rebuilt engine installed in 2010. The cooler on the right was the cooler from the original engine in the 2003 truck. Back then, the top plates were dimpled. The Ford/Navistar version in Post 21 does not have the same bottom construction as these, and both are different. I'd have to find these in the shed to pull them out and count the layers, but the early production does not have the added layer.








This is the test I did to check the flow rate between these situations a few years back.






The state of air flow was new, 156 cfm, clogged intake ports only with a 12ºF differential, 112 cfm, and clogged silicate passageways with a 28ºF differential, 20 cfm.

 

How did you measure CFM? I’m intrigued by your test setup with a shop vac. I’m thinking of a 3D printed adapter with integrated pitot tube to measure flow velocity and pressure to back out flow rate and flow resistance. Maybe I need to dig the dorman cooler out of the trash as a test piece. It’s probably got some buildup in it.

 

When you're done with it, I'll take it if you don't cut it up. I can add it to my video (When it ever gets published), so it's apples to apples. Both of my IMac computers have screwed up my photo/video work.

I used the anemometer I use to balance airflow in HVAC, plus a few other things, lol.

I'm posting the partial video of the work I was doing to YouTube off my older Mac. Well, what's left of it until I do much more editing. It won't have a narrative, nor is it fully edited. But it will show what I was doing. It's going to take 45min to an hour.

 

Unfortunately, I don't see any way to know the answers to these questions, other than the way we worked through this in the early days ......... feedback from people who have installed them and run them through heavy towing situations. We won't even know if quality materials were used in the gaskets until people have used them for quite a few miles, and through quite a few temperature extremes.

 

EDIT - please delete, double post.

 

This is my original cooler, truck build date is 11/2002.

 

Whoa, definitely not a part I'd want to pull at a PuP yard, and I doubt dismantlers want to pull them either. Best bet is prolly to ask local diesel shops to save those they pull for you. Or the guys here. I'd have sent you the OEM one I pulled over the summer.

 

The video will probably complete going to 4k by 6:30. Again, it is not edited, and there is a lot more to add. I only have in there my first cooler cut apart. This one went through about 10-12 hours of engine time running with VC-9, Restore, and Restore+, more than anyone would probably recommend due to concerns about other components in the cooling system. Although the radiator, hoses, and heater core never had issues for an additional 75k.

In the 12 min or so area, you can see the flow areas across the cooler. I'm not showing Karl's cooler (Nylyon), which was not cleaned and has a massive amount of silicate in it. Mine probably did, too, as there are indications in the lower channels. The more significant issue of why the cooler flowed so badly was the intake port being clogged, which was the issue with my cooler in the middle after 75k using ELC.

But, this preliminary video was to show the technique I used to measure flow. Water flow would have been a better method, but it also would have been a mess documenting the flow rate.




The details of the original work that Karl and I did are located in the massive thread over on the org. Karl later took that and made an excellent cooler flushing PDF file for people to follow, adding the newer backflushing technique.

https://www.powerstroke.org/threads/...-temps.149749/