Oil Cooler Gasket

[Mopar1973Man]

Finally had to change a oil cooler gasket on my truck. It has been seeping for the last 5 to 6 months leaving a small bit of coolant on the floor of the garage. I will let you all know that oil cooler gasket set is a Cummins only thing. I tried NAPA, Autozone and few others and no one stocks this gasket set. 

 

As for changing it out is pretty straight forward. You need to remove the air filter and the oil filter. On the oil filter housing remove the oil hose for the turbo. Then the bolts holding the oil cooler in place are all 10mm heads. 

 

After I got it pull out I compared the new and old gasket to realize that the rubber seal lip had failed. You can see its completely missing on the old gasket. This is where my coolant leak was from. Most likely just old age. 

 

Filter side of the oil cooler.

 

Coolant side of the oil cooler. These photos are without clean up. Just removed and photos taken.

 

17 years of tap water and creek water the block has 385k miles and no signs of scale build up at all. 

 

As for clean up. Sharpen my puddy knife and scraped off the old rubber seal. Be very careful that no debris get into the oil holes below. I used a bit of brake clean and cleaned up the outer housing. Oil cooler I buffed the sealing edge with a scotch brite pad in a drill. Very lightly to just smooth the seal surface again. 

 

I did an extra step and chased the threads on the bolts to clean them up going back in. They were kind of corroded from dried coolant and oil. I used a 8mm x 1.25 die.

 

The sandwich gasket between the filter and the cooler came off super easy and peeled off clean. I will mention that it much easier to stack up all the parts and pass two bolts through and get that started.  DO NOT use any sealants here! Just bolt it up. 

 

I check the Dodge FSM for torque specs and found nothing about the oil cooler for installation. I was aiming for about 15 foot pounds on these bolts.

 

Make sure to pull the thermostat so you can refill the block with coolant. After you start the engine and let it run a bit make sure to check the oil level too. I dumped the oil filter out and ended up adding oil to be in the normal range again.  

Edited July 8, 2019 by Mopar1973Man

[Dieselfuture]

I am not telling my truck I've read this, no way 

[dripley]

I almost did this when the head was off. Just could not make myself do it. And I did no tell my truck about it.

[Mopar1973Man]

Kept yelling at the my truck to quit peeing in the shop. After 17 years you figure the truck would be house broke right?

 

[BBHD]

Most times when things get older the get incontinent