Oil coolers splitting

·         ROGER PALAMOUNTAIN

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I have a Jabiru 5100. The first oil cooler (Aero Classics 8000075) lasted a couple of hours then poured oil out somewhere in the finned area.
Luckily this occurred on the ground. 20 hours of flying later and the rplacement (Airflow Systems 2004X split around the curved end slightly just below one of the seams (again, on the ground!). I fitted a standard oil pressure gauge in place of the sender and it showed a maximum presssure of around 40psi. I downloaded the data from my Dynon Skyviews and that indicated a maximum of 52psi at about 2800rpm during prevoius flying.
I read Service Bulletin JSB 004-4 re port plate modifications but Jabiru says it is not applicable to the 8 cylinder engines.
I have removed the braided lines and fitted standard rubber hoses as it has been suggested that this could absorb any pulsing present.
Anyone out there had similar problems?

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·         Doug Smith

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Hi Roger,
The testing I helped with years ago on the 2200 showed that the worst pressure pulses happen shortly after engine start, when the oil is cold. If the engine power raised before the oil temp gets above 40 or 50 degrees we were seeing nasty pressure spikes due to cavitation which damaged the coolers. Good chance that's why most cooler failures - like yours - happened on the ground or in the circuit. The mods to the 2200 oil port plate helped with all that.
Multigrade oil can help because it has lower viscosity when cold, and so less tendency to cavitate - if you're not already using it I'd suggest that would be a good place to start. If you can bear to extend the warming-up process that can help too.
In theory the mods to the 2200 port plate could also be applied to your engine but without proper instrumentation we'd be turning your engine into a science experiment, which I don't recommend!
Regards,
Doug.

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·         ROGER PALAMOUNTAIN

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Thanks again Doug. About to swap to multigrade as the 25hr run-in is imminent.
Roger

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