Do I need an oil cooler

[alvinrs]

I have a 2005 Electra Glide Standard and am having a Mystery Design trike kit put on. I live in North Texas and was wondering if I should put on an oil cooler.

[ultraboy]

An oil cooler on an air cooled v twin is always a good idea, two wheels or three.

[alvinrs]

Thanks

[1550vt]

I would suppose that just about everybody will agree and go +1 with Ultraboy on this issue. I have never understood the hard-hardheadedness of the MOCO not to just go ahead and professionally engineer one like Victory does. He!!....they do it on some of the Sporster models and it looks like it belongs there. All the rest of us have to hay-wire one in or spend all sort's of $'s to get one on that looks like it belongs there.

Yep...this is one of my favorite MOCO rants...pardon the intrusion and yes....put an oil cooler on there!

[BlueTrinity]

I have never understood the hard-hardheadedness of the MOCO not to just go ahead and professionally engineer one like Victory does.

All the rest of us have to......spend all sort's of $'s to get one on

Well now...see there...you really did understand all along!

[Gorilla]

I have a 2005 Electra Glide Standard and am having a Mystery Design trike kit put on. I live in North Texas and was wondering if I should put on an oil cooler.

A resounding yes. HD see's fit to put them as standard on their police bikes and the CVO models. To keep the initial price down on their normal sales they offer it as an add on from their parts and accessory catalog. I think it's necessary.

[1550vt]

A little old-school I guess, but I have always gone with the crash-bar oil cooler. The crash-bar may not be as efficient as some of the commercial finned models, but you can plumb it up with aircraft style fittings and hoses, nobody will ever know it's on there unless you show them and it's virtually bullet-proof. All mine have worked very well.

The one pictured below is not nearly as obvious as it seems from the close-up. No hose clamps, no rubber lines, no plastic thermostats.

[Gorilla]

A little old-school I guess, but I have always gone with the crash-bar oil cooler. The crash-bar may not be as efficient as some of the commercial finned models, but you can plumb it up with aircraft style fittings and hoses, nobody will ever know it's on there unless you show them and it's virtually bullet-proof. All mine have worked very well.

The one pictured below is not nearly as obvious as it seems from the close-up. No hose clamps, no rubber lines, no plastic thermostats.

VT how much capacity does this add to the oil supply? Does the pump have any trouble handling the increased circulation volume?

[1550vt]

Well Gorilla...it's one of those answers like...it depends. If all the oil was heated up enough throughout the whole system....it would add about a quart. But, one can plainly realize that at start-up and in cool weather, not much (if any) oil will be making a pass through the cooler. I still run the same amount that I always did....around 4-quarts. If I put additional oil in to make-up for the crash-bar...I have too much oil in the pan at start-up.

Mine happens to be an early model TC and I intercepted the return oil line just before if goes back into the pan. This is the way all the earlier coolers were connected before filter wafer adapters became popular. When you take the cooler flow off the return side. it doesn't matter if you have any air-pockets anyplace in the system as the oil is on it's way back to the oil tank anyway. Contrary to what some people think, the crash-bar (or any cooler) may not be full of oil....depends on how hot the oil is and how high the cooler is mounted.

This crash-bar system is not recommended on a TC with the adapter wafer. The wafer takes the oil cooler input from the feed side of the pump and will result in dry-starts. That is the reason the HD coolers are chin-mounted. As long as the cooler is mounted below the wafer adapter, it's fine.

In my case....oil is being forced back through the crash-bar and to the oil pan by the scavenge side of the pump after it leaves the engine.

[Gorilla]

VT thanks I copy all of that. Still a very interesting setup. Do you have a temp guage on the pan? If so what temp do you get up to on lets say a 80 degree day?

[1550vt]

After some 20-years of running crash-bar coolers...I never found the time to actually measure oil temperatures. BUT...I do have a brand-new infrared thermometer and I plan to find out this spring and summer. I have had other guys take measurements on their crash-bar set ups and I think the temperature drop is around 15 degrees, maybe a bit more. I have been told it's about as efficient as a Jagg. I know it's working and shedding heat. All you have to do is reach down and feel the crash with your hand and you can detect how warm it is. I have watched the oil temperature gauge and could tell you when the thermostat opened by the slight rise in oil pressure. It's pretty amusing to take off on a hot day and watch the oil pressure settle in and then see it increase a few pounds after things got hot enough to open the stat feeding the cooler.

It's certainly not the most efficient cooler on the market, but it is effective enough and certainly better than none at all. It's also economical and pretty rugged. Some custom bikes, and I believe some of the Buell machines, used various parts of the frame for oil storage/cooling as opposed to an oil pan. The crash-bar is the same thing in principal and its out there in-the-wind all the time.

[secondroy]

I would not run an engine that large without an oil cooler. If I were to buy a Harley it would have one on there when I took delivery.

[427dave]

Harley also puts the oil cooler on all their 103 engines. Ultra Limited, TriGlide, and Police bikes with 103 all have them.

[Maryland Triker]

My came with one and so do the Screaming Eagle bikes

[Shriner Jim]

Mine is a 96" 2008 HD, famously hot. I thought I would measure my oil temp before I went further. I removed that useless air temp gauge on the lower left and replaced it with an oil temp guage. I have never seen it go high enough to justify an oil cooler. I run Amsoil, a breakdown temp of well over 300 deg. F. My oil temp in the hottest, slowest riding has been lower than 290, while cruising it will stay about 235. It seems that an oil cooler would not be necessary. Only my 2 cents.

[1550vt]

Depends on where you ride Jim. I fully understand that folks can become paranoid over their oil temperature just like they can their oil pressure. The only time I know mine is too hot is when I am sitting in traffic out west someplace and the thing starts rattling like a pin-ball machine. I have been behind a few that started smoking (burning oil) after it got so hot and thinned-out the oil. I have been stuck in traffic jams and simply just pull over on the shoulder and let mine cool down when the oil pressure went to zero. An oil cooler is not going to help you much in those situations anyway. Once all the oil gets too hot...it will simply be hot until you start getting air flowing across everything again, unless you go the route with the fans on one.

I think the fact that the MOCO has started shipping some models with oil coolers installed is a good indicator they have finally gave up on the long-held belief that if it needed one...they would put one on. These leaner and hotter engines do push oil to the limits.