Recently, I had to change my oil cooler, as my old (plated) Revmaster oil cooler had cracked. Not wanting to wait a week for shipping, I went to Auto Zone and bought a Tube/Fin design, and for all intents and purposes, it fit perfectly. Nearly the same size as the Revmaster, so all I did was zip tie it to the sheet metal mounting that the Revmaster cooler had once been attached to, and then bolt the sheet metal to the engine
The problems arose when I first took it flying. It certainly cooled well enough, but I very quickly heard a god awful buzzing/rattling sound as I accelerated to cruising speed. My first thought was that zip tying the cooler to the sheet metal was causing the noise, due to the vibration from the engine, since there was some metal on metal contact. So yesterday, I removed the sheet metal mounting, and zip tied the oil cooler directly to the engine block with some high temp. insulation (almost like a foam) between the edges of the oil cooler and the engine. I hoped that the insulation would help absorb the vibrations. I took her flying and the problem was much worse. Still had the rattling/horrid buzzing sound that I experienced the first time around, except this time it was much greater in magnitude. I am now considering if the tube/fin design is even sufficient for aircraft, since the fins are exposed to much higher air speeds than in an automobile. Maybe the higher airspeed is causing the fins to vibrate/rattle during operation which is what is causing the noise. I checked the condition of the fins, and to my surprise they were in perfect condition. Basically untouched, and not bent/mangled from too much airflow. Anybody have any insight as to what this noise could be? I noticed that Troy Petteway once used a tube/fin design on his C-85 engine, and there was no mention of a rattling/buzzing sound, and his plane goes virtually twice the speed of mine. Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated. The plane is still safe to fly for the time being, it’s just more of a nuisance than anything. Maybe this will give me an excuse to buy a Bose sound canceling headset. For reference, here is the oil cooler I purchased: https://www.autozone.com/external-engine/engine-oil-cooler/compressor-works-engine-oil-cooler-911457/788916_567281_0 V/R Sam Spanovich N6399U 74S, Anacortes, WA _______________________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at https://www.mail-archive.com/krnet@list.krnet.org/. Please see LIST RULES and KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html. see http://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet_list.krnet.org to change options. To UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@list.krnet.org
