My truck is leaking oil pretty bad...I believe its coming from the oil cooler and the front seal. Can both of these be replaced with the engine in the truck? Also what will I be getting into by doing this, like how hard and what all will need removed? Id like to get this done as soon as possible and take the littlest time possible...Any help appreciated.

 

it would be just about as easy to pull the motor the oil cooler is a pain to get to. and to do the front seal you have to remove the oil pan i think but im not for sure never done one before.

 

while i can't say that i was standing there watching the wrench change mine, the ford diesel guy changed the front main seal and the oil cooler seals/o-rings and left the engine in the truck(7.3 non turbo) he did say that they broke the motor mounts loose and jacked the engine up some to get to everything, but he said it wasn't necessary to pull the engine. hope this helps some.

speedrdr

 

If you lift the left hand side of the engine it should be possible to remove the oil cooler. Heard of others that have done it. Just make sure you block the engine up with a good piece of wood or something. Thats over 1000 lbs with everything assembled.

 

I don't know anything about the oil cooler except it seems to be something that is regularly talked about here.
Pardon my ignorance but would it be possible to plumb in an external oil cooler like you would retrofit to a gas motor?
It seems that would be better and easier.
My truck run extremely cool even in 100% weather with the A/C on, is the cooler even really necessary? I realize water temp. doesn't indicate oil temp but this truck runs as cool as my Cummins although I haven't headed over the pass with a load on it yet.

 

If you follow the oil flow, the pump picks it up in the oil pan.
When the oil exits the pump, it goes through the block into the oil cooler.
Through the oil cooler, then through the oil filter.
Once it goes through the filter, then comes the pressure regulator, then it goes back inside the block.

The coolant that goes to the oil cooler is a bit harder to follow, but goes something like out of the radiator, through the corner of the block then into the water pump and into the drivers side block.
The flow comes out of the rear of the block through the oil cooler and back to mix with coolant out of the radiator where it goes through the corner of the block before going to the water pump.

With the piston cooling oil jets, the oil carries a lot of heat out of the engine.
That amout of heat is also increased if you are running a turbo.
The IDI oil cooler works rather well.

The hard part about going to an external cooler would be routing both the coolant and oil out and back in the engine.
The next problem would be getting an oil cooler that worked as well as the stock one does.

You can change both the front main seal and oil cooler gaskets and O rings with the engine in the truck.

Remove the motor mount bolts on the drivers side motor mount and jack the engine up as far as you can and block it there.
Now remove the oil filter.
Drain coolant.
Remove the oil cooler bolts.
Remove the oil cooler.


Front main goes like this.
Remove the belts and crank pulley.
Remove the harmonic balancer.
With a seal puller, you can pull the seal.

The front main seal is in the timing gear cover and does not touch the oil pan.
The other surface it rides against is the harmonic balancer neck.

 

The integral oil cooler has the advantage of being able to heat up the oil in cold weather which helps to burn off any moisture that may collect in the oil from cold starts or short run times. An external oil cooler can't really do this.

How cool is your engine running? Ideal running temp for best fuel economy and oil jube is supposed to start at 195F.