Oil Cooler 3

With a hour left before needing to head home for the day, I decided to fit the oil cooler into the nose section of the car. I could then determine the best fixing position for the thermostat and, if necessary, cut the hoses to a more suitable length.

I had bought a mounting bracket and fixing kit off GD rather than messing about trying to fabricate my own. As usual the holes in the bracket don't quite align with the holes in the cooler so these needed opening up.

To determine the position of the fixing holes which would be drilled in the undertray I marked a centreline on both the undertray and the oil cooler and lined the two up. I fitted the bracket to the top of the oil cooler and put this in place in the lip of the nose cone. I then marked the hole positions and drilled them in place.

NOw the GD fixing kit comes wiht spacers which are designed to be fitted between the undertray and the GRP below. With this in mind, I drilled right the way through the GRP but when I went to put the spacers in place this seemed pointless. The gap between the tray and the GRP was a lot bigger than the spacer and there were only spacers for two of the four fixing bolts.

I bolted everything up in place and to be fair it fits really firm and I cant quite see why I need to fix through to the GRP so I will probably leave this as it is now.

The only thing that needs sorting now is to get a couple more button heads as there were only 6 in the fixing kit and with my method of fixing I need 8. For the time being I have used a couple of socket cap heads to get the job done. No one will ever notice but I will know they don't match so I will have to change at some point - I've noted it on my snagging list.