Thread: R380 Oil Cooler

Hi Leo , its never too late, if your old gearbox dies, the cooler is there for the next one.

I bought the gearbox thermostat connection piece second hand from the UK for 60 ?, and got it shipped out. You can make up your own hoses & fittings etc and buy an oil cooler at auto pro etc.

Later on I bought the whole oil cooler connection, pipes etc assembly off a fellow aulroian for about $100. So they are around, ringing the wreckers would be my first move.
cheers simmo

Thermostat housing, lines and cooler from a D2 and bolt it up.
I have the lot here if you want to PM me

awsome response strangy aulroians at their best

Originally Posted by simmo

awsome response strangy aulroians at their best

And so say all of us! (Especially me)

Or run a high temp/high shear oil like Redline MTL or a cheap option is ATF,$24 for four litres and change every 20K,the last option is very attractive. Pat

Maybe you should be checking what is available from Disco 1's being wrecked. I recently scored - to go on my 300Tdi Defender the oil cooler from a D1 with 3.9 V8 and R380. Also most of the rest of vehicle in a dirty mess and with a blown rear diff. Mate got it much cheaper than secondhand price for ARB bullbar he wanted.


I presume that some of those wanting secondhand R380's would already have a cooler You would just need to get the cooler fitting - which may normally go with a gearbox off one as well as the cooler and plumbing. Of course the latter could be partly built by you using some original type fittings.




Note to get fitting off side of gearbox, I cut a hole in side of transmission tunnel. Would be very difficult to otherwise remove it and install bypass or visa versa with gearbox in place in Disco. (Much easier in Defender.) I think cutting a hole and making a plate to cover it would probably be best option. Hole I cut was initially small then carefully enlarged.




As my Defender has a tray body, I intend to mount cooler under it rather than add to clutter to and around the radiator. Would need to make up plumbing anyway - partly using bits of that from dead Disco. Note that pulling it off was probably made slightly easier by removing the leaking clutch slave cylinder first.

Originally Posted by mox

Note to get fitting off side of gearbox, I cut a hole in side of transmission tunnel. Would be very difficult to otherwise remove it and install bypass or visa versa with gearbox in place in Disco. (Much easier in Defender.) I think cutting a hole and making a plate to cover it would probably be best option. Hole I cut was initially small then carefully enlarged.

Now that's a problem I hadn't considered. Would it be be possible to get at the required area by dropping the gearbox cross member and and letting it hang down as far as possible without damaging the engine mounts?

Strangely enough, I can't find any mention of a R380 oil cooler in my Rave CD (V011). Is it there somewhere?

In some models the R380 oil cooler is merely a loop of pipe running along the LHS chassis rail and back to the box. (the rail is used as a heat sink)

In Europe and UK R380 weren't fitted with the cooler plumbing as it was felt that in the cold European temperatures the cooler was more a problem than the occasional high temp in the height of the European summer.