Hi Folks,
This is the last piece of info I have on my oil temperature tests.
Aluminum Oil Filter Cooler ?Collar?
Have you ever seen those funky looking aluminum ?collars? that slip on the oil filters?
The unit advertised as an Oil Cooler?
I have and I wanted to see how well, if any it workked.
Here is a picture of what I am talking about. I installed it on an oil filter on my shop bench.
This is nothing more then a piece of extruded aluminum bent in a circle and held onto the outside of an oil filter with a large hose clamp.
A unit like this can be purchased from J.C. Whiney for about $19. It can also be purchased from Summit Racing and even Jeg?s for about the same price.
If you try one of these on a TJ with a 4.0L engine, be sure to put the collar on BEFORE you screw the filter in place on the block. There is just not enough clearance to get it on the filter once the filter is in place.
How Well does it Work?
I did more then a bit of testing with this as I wanted to see if there was any value to it. In truth I spent more time testing this thing then I did all the other testing efforts combined.
The first test I ran, I installed the collar on the filter and ran my 1-hour test as I described earlier in the post. To my surprise, the oil temps were higher. By 6 degrees F both in average oil temp and in the high oil temp recorded.
While I didn?t expect much I did expect to get some value out of my $19.
This was puzzling to me
I decided to take the filter out and take another look at the collar. When I slid it off the filter housing I noticed it scarped the paint off the filter ?can? in three places.
So?. I slid it on and off a few more times taking notice, that even after the hose clamp was tightened down the aluminum collar only contacted the oil filter can in three places, at best.
I wanted to try something.
Using a new filter I covered the entire outside of the oil filter ?can? with grease. Yes the same grease I use on my ball joints.
I then re-installed the collar on the oil filter, tightened down the clamp and installed the filter on the engine. After topping off the oil I retested for the same 1-hour test.
The grease folks made a world of difference.
Oil temps now dropped 4.7 degrees on average and the high oil temp dropped by 12 degrees.
I concluded from this test that the Grease is enabling a much better heat transfer from the oil filter ?can? to the aluminum fins where it can then dissipates into the air.
I took this one step farther. I figured if I could improve the airflow around the oil filter with collar I could also improve the cooling effect.
I did this by removing the rubber like skirt from inside the passenger side fender.
This is the skirt that hangs down to cover the space between the fender and the Jeep frame.
I ran the one-hour test again and this time
I recorded an oil temperature drop of 7.4 degrees F on average and a high temp recording that was down by 16 degrees F.
Bottom Line
I think for less then 20 bucks this is a worthwhile investment.
I particularly like that the engine oil never leaves the engine and therefore isn?t subject to a higher potential to leak.
If you go this way make sure you cover the oil filter on the outside with a nice coating of GREASE before you put the oil cooling ?collar? on or I don?t think you will see any benefit to it.
I also would not recommend running around off road without that fender skirt in place. There is just too much opportunity for a rock to find the thin metal on the cap of the oil filter and put a nice hole in it.
I think a better solution would be one of those small 12-volt 4-inch pancake fans to blow air on the collar, however I did not test how well that would work.
If I did not have the oil to coolant cooler in place I would use this $19 cooler the way I have tested. That said, please know you can?t use both at the same time.
You just don?t have the clearance on the TJ with 4.0L to get the filter with collar on it, onto the end of the oil to coolant cooler.
I hope some find this helpful,
Frank