I installed a winch on my Wolverine last weekend and it required the relocating of the oil cooler. The relocation required the removal of one line and yep it stripped the threads on the oil cooler. I did a search of the forums and read that many have installed larger oil coolers either off of other atvs or used power steering coolers, small transmission coolers etc that were larger capacity and provided extra cooling capacity / capability. My question is does using a larger oil cooler take away too much oil from the engine and could cause additional wear on the cam, seizure issues on the bearings or possibly other reliability issues?

Thanks

 

I think you mean does it take away from to much oil pressure. As long as the core doesn't have a huge pressure drop accross it. In all reality though almost all coolers have very little pressure drop, but it all depends on the actual design of them. So I wouldn't worry about it. I can tell you though that you will not hurt your engine by going to a larger oil cooler as it will just help cool the oil more and extend engine life. Where oil is taken from on that setup you won't hurt anything. I believe the big bear had a larger core if you wanted to go with a factory option.

 

Jason thanks for the reply. Truthfully I never considered oil pressure, just capacity. I don't have the Wolverine specs in front of me but I believe the engine holds a little over three quarts of oil. If my current oil cooler holds say half a quart of oil and I go to a larger oil cooler that holds a quart of oil there will be two quarts of oil in the motor versus 2.5 quarts. I was concerned about less oil in the operating motor. If I'm way off and overly concerned about nothing someone just tell me so.

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Ed M

Jason thanks for the reply. Truthfully I never considered oil pressure, just capacity. I don't have the Wolverine specs in front of me but I believe the engine holds a little over three quarts of oil. If my current oil cooler holds say half a quart of oil and I go to a larger oil cooler that holds a quart of oil there will be two quarts of oil in the motor versus 2.5 quarts. I was concerned about less oil in the operating motor. If I'm way off and overly concerned about nothing someone just tell me so.</end quote></div>

ED, that makes no sense! Think about it this way. Your engine will always have the 3.2 quarts of oil in it. The hoses and cooler take up .5 quarts for a total of 3.7 quarts of oil. .5 quarts always stays in the cooler and then 3.2 quarts says in the motor. It just gets circulated through. So there is a valve inside the oil filter cap that basically holds oil in the cooler when the engine is not runing. You always want to fill the cooler up and lines up with oil before starting your engine for the first time, then once you do that even after you change your oil that valve holds the oil in the cooler
Hopefully that makes more sense to you. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

If you go to a bigger oil coole just add more oil that way you are full when you check the level.

 

Ahhhh okay I didn't realize the oil stayed in the oil cooler even after shutting off the motor. I just figured it returned to the engine. When I disconnected the oil lines and cooler only a few ounces of oil came out, and I was thinking it should have been more than that but apparently the capacity of the stock oil cooler is fairly small. New larger oil cooler is on the way. Good time to change the oil and clean the filter anyway, and yes I will be making sure the oil level is between the marks.

Thanks

 

It definetly sounds like you are on top of things. If you want to check this outoil cooler guard upgrade

 

the link that goes to is a site that is dedicated to only the yamaha wolverine so you will find a lot of useful info there.