[gman]

Lol thanks guys.
I didn't see all this drama. Seems completely unavoidable in my life it seems, so I try to ignore it as much as possible and just minimize how I react to it and how much I talk about it.
That way no one ever gets the satisfaction of knowing how/when I think about it. The more I do that, the more I condition people to understand that nothing good is going to come out of it.
I think that it would be a great real world strategy, but for me personally it just seems unavoidable.

I don't really care if I "look stupid" to most people, because I have near zero social motivation because I spend 99% of my time alone.
Meaning, I have almost no social consequences other than the occasional passerby who might "look" at me or something.
I've also completely let go of any possibility of having an ideal social life with people who share the same interests as I do, and I'll probably never get a real girlfriend, which was like 99% of the reason I cared about any social status at all.

So really, fear has been one of the only motivators in my life.

At the end of the day, if I were to see the post, I would just get whatever useful information I could out of it, maybe respond in a way that would help other people stop being afraid of asking for information, and also respond in a way that doesn't get me banned from the forum.

If I lived my entire life in fear of looking stupid or making mistakes, I would literally be in the exact same position that I was years ago in terms of applicable knowledge.
But 6 years ago, I didn't have a college degree, only knew how to work on old, archaic cars, and had a very limited view of the world.

Could the thing fail? Yeah. But I've also had cars fail for very "odd" reasons that didn't seem related to anything that I did, so it's hard for me to attach any sort of responsibility for it at the end of the day, because it seems like even if I do my best, it's probably going to fail at some point where it's extremely inconvenient for me, for reasons unrelated to anything that I did to it.
All I can really do is give it my best, and live like I have some semblance of normalcy.

I mean, the whole reason I'm even on this forum is to hopefully get information from other people, and to hopefully help other people in similar situations find the same kind of information.
DIY car maintanence is really fun, but a lot of people are also in really crappy situations where a <= $2000 car is often the only thing that they can afford, and with the proper guidance and maintanance, they can probably get quite a bit of good use out of it, have a lot of fun, and feel personally proud about something for once in their life.

Anyways, not really sure what was said about "draining", but I also don't see what the problem would be with this situation:
- You notice you have too much oil.
- You know that that's going to be a problem.
- You always carry a drain pain, extra fluids, and a pump with you, but the pump tube won't go down the dipstick hole.

Logically, the only thing left is to drain it from the plug, leave as little of a mess as possible (I literally left nothing behind, and cleaned up what little splatter i had from my cheap *** drain pan), and re-fill until the thing is at optimal levels.

What would you do if you lost coolant? Same thing right?
Lol.

 

[Rod's Trucks]

I have to apologize :liar: for my post on May 19th, about finding fittings for the radiator connections.
I have tried that, and struck out completely.
Nobody seems to recognize the fitting that screws into the radiator, as being any sort of a standard thread. The only places I have not tried, are a few industrial hydraulics shop in Seattle. The local NAPA stores do wquite a bit of industrial hydraulic hose work for construction equipment., and they took one look at it and said they had seen nothing like those fittings.
Of course the dealer wills ell me a replacement fitting, but I have a couple of those.
Anyway, consider looking for a plug to match that thread to probably be a lost cause. It you want to make a plug, just keep junk out of that part of the radiator; consider crimping the end of the original line or cleaning the adapter fitting well, and sealing it with some sort of sealer (silicone, construction adhesive, epoxy, bath tub caulk, etc), it is only to keep foreign stuff out, and the fitting can be unscrewed later if desired.
Rod J

 

[Mmusicman]

It you want to make a plug, just keep junk out of that part of the radiator; consider crimping the end of the original line

That's what I did with mine.. mainly because I cut the lines up when I removed them.
I ensured there was ZERO chance I'd ever put this mess back in!
Eventually I replaced that radiator with performance aftermarket.. no longer an issue.

I suspect you could possibly unscrew (I think it may be an adapter) and replace with NPT plug if you really wanted to. But really, I don't think any of this is worth all the trouble. You could also just plug the cooler holes with some kind of soft rubber putty .. any number of creative possibilities.

 

[MechBob]

Wow,made a post, but did not work?Perhaps because I hit enter instead of the submit?

 

[MechBob]

Will try again.Nice post Gman.Yes, sometimes you can get picked on here, just snap back at them, it is what they expect! As far as blocking the Rad. go to the parts store and get some push in plastic plugs, does not take much, can usually find a assortment pak in the HELP section.As far as oil quantity, the engine holds 4.5 qt. The new filter can hold up to 1/2 qt. depending on which filter is used.If van was left to drain, for a few hours, and still has the lines to the rad. can hold close to 6 qt.s Stay well.

 

[gman]

So I just removed the cooler lines entirely.
It's actually quite easy and takes less time than if I were to try and get upside down and cut them.
The thought of most of the weight of the lines hanging off the radiator while it bumps and vibrates around kind of scared me so I finally removed them.(though there is another 10mm nut that holds them to the engine block so I wasn't too worried).

Anyways, here is a pic of what the clip looks like.
Easily accessible, and you can just use a hook pic to kind of push at one end until it pops off.

The one deeper and near the bottom of the radiator comes out to the SIDE.
The closed end is facing the engine, so you can try to look for a clip endnand just kind of ory towards the engine. You'll eventually hear it pop off.

I saved the clips in case it ever goes back in, and for now I just blocked off the holes with shop towels and zip ties until I find a proper plug(low priority).

It would be a really easy area to flush if I ever put them back in.
It's just a small isolated part of the rad and doesn't snake around in there too much.

Anyways, here's a pic of the clip

cooler line clips

• gman
• Jun 22, 2020

 

[ri$e*above]

Great write-up. I'm split on going this route, or upgrade the radiator and oil and transmission coolers to run separate from the radiator.

 

[Star Stuff]

Help please! I just went through this process removing the lines during an oil change, and now the engine is running like crap. In Park, the RPMs come off idle just fine, but when I stomp on the gas pedal to rev it higher, it struggles to climb in RPM, and feels like it's running on 3 cylinders.

After completing the lines removal, installing filter and adding oil, I started it up and heard something odd underneath and shut the engine off immediately, and I'm glad I did, because it turned out that the filter was not on tight enough, and oil blew out all over that area, fortunately only for about 2 seconds, so not much oil lost. I used an oil filter wrench, and I suspect that because the filter is so incredibly close to the oil pan, the tension I was feeling was the tool rubbing against the oil pan, and it simply wasn't tightened enough.

But back to the rough running - I noticed that oil got all over the O2 sensor, so could that be what's causing the engine to be running as described?

 

[Leeann_93]

Never, ever, use a tool to tighten an oil filter. The tool is ONLY to remove the filter.

Hand tighten, loosen ¼ turn, re-tighten.

 

[Star Stuff]

Never, ever, use a tool to tighten an oil filter. The tool is ONLY to remove the filter.

Hand tighten, loosen ¼ turn, re-tighten.

Yes, I'm aware of that, I just thought I'd give a tiny bit extra given that I couldn't get a good grasp on it with my hand.

Any ideas on my rough engine issue?

 

[Wiley]

Did you drain and refill, just to be sure you are now running your engine with the proper amount?? Running a few seconds like that shouldn't do anything, I had oil spew out of my lines without issue, so I feel it is either random, or you had less oil than you thought, and may be damaging the engine when you run it now....I feel at this point we would only be randomly guessing.

You might as well clean that sensor, you never know.

 

[Star Stuff]

Did you drain and refill, just to be sure you are now running your engine with the proper amount?? Running a few seconds like that shouldn't do anything, I had oil spew out of my lines without issue, so I feel it is either random, or you had less oil than you thought, and may be damaging the engine when you run it now....I feel at this point we would only be randomly guessing.

You might as well clean that sensor, you never know.

Yes, the engine ran for literally 2-3 seconds upon initial start. I immediately cleaned the oil off the sensor and everything else. After I tightened the oil filter some more, and ran the engine, that's when I noticed the rough running, and there would have been plenty of oil in the engine at that time.

The only other thing I did was put in a new air filter just before the oil change, but I can't imagine that effecting anything. I just now disconnected the Neg terminal from the battery, thinking that it might cause some sort of "reset" with the computer?

Here's another thing I did (yesterday): I took out the battery in order to take out the rusty battery tray and clean it up and paint it. In that process of course, I had to un-clip the computer, and it had to be jostled around a bit trying to get that bloody tray out. Could that bit of jostling to the computer done something? I didn't run the engine after that, only after today's oil change & line removal.

 

[Star Stuff]

...and here's another thing, after I had removed the oil cooler attachment block, I went to clean the mating surface on the engine block just prior to putting on the filter, and just going by memory, I'm fairly confident that the mating surface had what looked like a fairly large o-ring as part of that surface, which I don't see in the OP's photo. I'm now wondering if that was something that I should have removed, and is what caused the giant leak upon initial start-up? *This engine is a professionally re-built engine, so could be originally from a different sort of vehicle.

 

[CopperFiremist]

You don't need that Oring there, your using the oring on the oil filter now to seal it around there. You sure you got that fitting ALL the way into the block? I just did a delete the other day and it goes way further up than you would think... Plus the Oil filter needs to be tighter than you would think.

 

[Sailing_Faith]

Yes, you need to remove that o ring. That is why your oil filter leaked.

I would go back and inspect your plugs on the MAF and the computer... both of them are much more likely to cause your running problems then the oil cooler delete.

 

[Star Stuff]

You don't need that o-ring there, you're using the o-ring on the oil filter now to seal it around there.

Yes, it seemed strange that one was there, but the OP didn't mention anything about it, so I just put the filter on.

You sure you got that fitting ALL the way into the block? I just did a delete the other day and it goes way further up than you would think

Yes, the threaded piece is good and tight.

 

[Star Stuff]

Yes, you need to remove that o ring. That is why your oil filter leaked.

Yes, I agree. I will get under there again tomorrow.

I would go back and inspect your plugs on the MAF and the computer... both of them are much more likely to cause your running problems then the oil cooler delete.

Yup. Electrical is my weakness, but will snoop around.

 

[Sailing_Faith]

Yes, you need to remove that o ring. That is why your oil filter leaked.

Yes, I agree. I will get under there again tomorrow.

I would go back and inspect your plugs on the MAF and the computer... both of them are much more likely to cause your running problems then the oil cooler delete.

Yup. Electrical is my weakness, but will snoop around.

Also, when you changed the air cleaner, you did not spray anything that could have gotten on the MAF did you? They are really sensitive, the only thing you can get any near them is the MAF specific cleaning spray. I once destroyed one with some CRC contact cleaner I was using on something near by while my air cleaner was unhooked for it...

 

[Star Stuff]

Also, when you changed the air cleaner, you did not spray anything that could have gotten on the MAF did you? They are really sensitive, the only thing you can get any near them is the MAF specific cleaning spray.

Nope, I just vacuumed out some grit & debris that was in there and that's it. I also snugged-up one of the two large hose clamps behind, as it was a little loose.

 

[Leeann_93]

That o-ring is to seal the adapter block to the engine. It comes out with the adapter - or should - and the o-ring on the oil filter is what seals it to the engine. OP didn't mention it and neither did I simply because ours came out with the adapter, as it was supposed to. Since it came out easily, I didn't even consider that it might get stuck.

Filter o-rings used to get stuck on the engine an awful lot - and almost all leaks from the oil filter area were from them being there in addition to the one on the new filter. It used to be a thing to double-check that the old o-ring was still on the filter and not stuck to the engine before you installed the new one.

The wiring to the MAF is likely suspect. It sits where it gets a LOT of heat and can get brittle and break if handled. Also, double-check that the ground to the rear thermostat stud is properly connected and the wire hasn't broken inside the tape or insulation - that happens all the time. I've had to fix 2 - one on my '02 and one on my '05. That ground handles a lot of the sensors that would seriously affect engine running.