Has anyone here made their own oil cooler lines, instead of buying them? If so, then what were the fitting sizes at each end and what were the hose lengths? I am confident I can have the hoses made for less than $200. Can anyone assist? I guess the worst I would have to do is to take them off ahead of time and check the fittings, for myself once out of the truck.

Thanks,
SnowDrift

I picked up a bunch of steel braided teflon coted lines during the last swap meet (Good Guys - Pleasanton, Ca) for $50. Among them is a pair of three feet long #8s with crimped fittings. What do you know? All I need now is a couple of 1/2-8 (cooler) and 3/4-8 90 degree (block) adapters.

Here's what I did. Remove the lines and cut the AL tubing as close to the crimps as possible. Add 1/2" union flair nut fittings to the tubing. After flaring the tubing, add 24" lengths of ½ ID braided steel high pressure high temperature (750 deg.)Teflon lined hydraulic lines. Do not use standard hydraulic lines as they are only rated to around 200 degrees or so. You can get the lines from Geib Industries, 3220 No. Wolf Road, Franklin Park, Illinois 60131 847 455-4550

They can be made to any length you want.

Part number: 110208/2807-8x24"/ 110208 for the 24" lines (I think the actual ID for these lines is 31/64) Very close to the ½" of the original tubing.

They were $11.26 each back in November of 2003
No more oil leaks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As an extra, I added oil temp. sensors in the lines before and after the oil enters the cooler. End result, oil is approximately 15-25 degrees cooler on the way out.

cut the Al crimps with dremel. Wipe clean. Replace Al crimps with 2 good quality SS hose clamps and get em tight. 1/2 hr and $5. No more leaks---I guarantee it

dkubek, I was worried that enough oil pressure (cold engine) could blow those hose clamps off and you would pump out all the oil, or am I just being overly-cautious. Mine is leaking pretty good right now and am looking for a fix. I saw a link to some stainless steel braided teflon lines (do a search in 6.5L forum--"stainless oil cooler lines") but those are $175. MFParker sounds like he's got a good system. Need some suggestions. Thanks.

we just lost an oil line fitting while doing 90km/h resulting in total engine rebuild :( , what we did to rectify it was removed the stock fitting from the block, take out the lower fitting first if your unsure of the NPT thread size it wasn't that hard to get at....but it wasn't fun.Then we installed two fittings with NPT on one end and JIC -8 on the other and made up 2 hydraulic hoses out of single strand 1/2" hyraulic hose. we make our own lines at the shop for our graders so it was a bit cheaper... total cost would be around $75 for everything including the block fittings if you had a shop make them for you.

marcus

Here is a link (http://www.lubricationspecialistllc.com/product_info.php?cPath=14&products_id=130) to stainless teflon hoses ready to go.

Greg

dkubek, I was worried that enough oil pressure (cold engine) could blow those hose clamps off and you would pump out all the oil, or am I just being overly-cautious. Mine is leaking pretty good right now and am looking for a fix. I saw a link to some stainless steel braided teflon lines (do a search in 6.5L forum--"stainless oil cooler lines") but those are $175. MFParker sounds like he's got a good system. Need some suggestions. Thanks.


I have had mine this way for over 10,000 miles in Northern Michigan with frequent below zero temps and have yet to have any problems or leaks. I am not saying it is not possible, but I have nothing but smiles and money in my pockets!

Point well taken dkubek. It would be a cheap solution as you're saying. I will keep that in mind. Just trying to map out the best way to go with this.