Oil cooler inspection

[max]

Just by accident i looked a bit closer at the engine and noticed a strange situation with the oil cooler;

   

   

Turned out i made the mistake of using a pressure washer to remove some dirt behind the oil cooler and had accidentally hit the cooler as well, the water pressure was far too much for the thin fins and had closed more than half of the airflow through the oil cooler.


So i had to take the cooler off the bike which was quite simple, emptied the oil out of the cooler and restore all the closed passages one by one ( whole days work ) and restored almost all of the light weight aluminum fins with some good fitting alu strips in various shapes;

   

Eventually we got all of them straightened out, applied some paint, removed the oil lines as well and gave them a good clean ( only a small amount of oil seeped out of the passages ) and put all of it back where it had been;

   

   

So we wont make that mistake again any time soon and all cooling has been restored

[Cormanus]

Nice work Max. Looks much better.

[peterbaron]

Professional repair, Max 

[Lord Popgun]

Very nicely done Max! Professionally done job.

[pdedse]

Nicely done on the fix. I know I've thought about using a pressure washer to reach difficult areas, but I was always fearful of damaging electrical this or that.

[Nachodaddy]

Nice work, Max and a good reminder to use care on those delicate areas.

[Whoops]

Just FYI, you can pick up an inexpensive "fin comb" on Amazon for not too much money. I recommend the plastic versions that are less likely to  mar the paint. Some of the round combs have several fin spacing sizes that will make much shorter work than doing individual fins by hand. Plus they tend to look more uniform when you can comb several fins together. Be wary of doing this too often though as the aluminum will fatigue and eventually break, but the combs do work well after removing the odd bug that hits hard enough to bend a fin.

[max]

Thanks Whoops, had no idea this existed and w'll go and have a look around.
Thanks very much for the tip!

[rdprdp01]

Max, all of us see that you will get the restoration done and everything will be returned to its original state. No doubt there, and I am glad the Forum rallied behind the effort.

Not so long ago, I purchased an oil cooler protector to help protect it from rocks and road debris. I am not sure if it would help offset the impact of a power washer, but the thread appears below if you want to check it out:

https://cb1100forum.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=36

I admire attention to detail, patience, and commitment. Clearly, you have all three along with my respect. David

[Cormanus]

Whoops, do you mean something like this?

https://www.amazon.com.au/Baxnore-Automo...90&sr=8-15