Tutorial on the use of heat?

Often you have to be willing to do more work to save a part, or sacrifice a lower valued part to save the expensive one. While I cant tell a great deal by looking at your picture, there is always another way to skin a cat. Remove the cooler lines from the other end, and remove the whole cooler, lines and all. Once its out, you should be able to unthread the entire fitting from the cooler. Once the fitting is out, you can use a bench vise to secure the fitting and remove the line from it, or vice versa.

As far as heat, the oil cooler is one of those items you want to keep excessive heat away from. IOW I wouldnt get a torch anywhere near it.

 

Use a flarenut wrench, the tube nut is already starting to round.

For what its worth, tightning before loosining sometimes works, the only other thing I can think of is rapping on the flare nut wrench with a hammer while holding adaptor with an open end wrench.

Heat, in this case, isn't going to be an option.

 

if you apply heat the plastic fitting will melt and you could unsolder something on the oil cooler. no heat. wrenches. do you have a proper wrench? not an open end but one of those flare line fittting wrenches. use a cheater for more leverage. perserverance furthers.

 

I agree with Tat and Fdriver, you need flarenut wrenches! I would use them on both fittings, brace one and hit the other with the heel of my hand or the aforementioned hammer/mallet. Flarenuts seem to sort of seize up after a while, and are prone to deforming when trying to break them loose, which is why the special wrenches are called for. The impact/shock of hitting the wrench, always seems to break a fitting loose, even those ones that someone has been fighting for hours. Good luck!

 

No way baby...I'm the king of heat ask Ernie and Plugzit. The cooler is a non-structural part so heat is not going to hurt it unless you melt it with like 2000 F. First make sure you are doing the lefty loosy righty tighty thing. Even good mechanics make the error when they approach something from the wrong angle. Second leave the blaster on and hit the unit with a generic propane torch. The boss and the oil line are likely to be similar materials so just sue the wrenches right on it while hot. Then you need to take the boss out because you cooked the plastic red thingy. If this is resistent use the same torch but let it cool before you put a wrench to it because the Aluminum will cool and contract faster than the steel boss. If parts are still subborn then do 2-3 heat cool cycles and then put a wrench to it.

 

Hi BillyBob,
While a generous application of heat, will generally help in loosening seized parts, my reservation about using heat on oil lines and coolers, is not with melting the cooler or the connectors, but that you may leave some cooked oil (carbon chunks) in there, that could float loose later, and cause a great deal of displeasure. Maybe I'm just a bit overcareful about that, but so be it

Regards,
Bill

 

Well I guess. I have this feel for how much heat over years of using it. I have about 3 different torches and 20 hammers! I'd have to try cooking some oil to see what happens. I do always dump red hot parts in oil to quench and it does not seem to coke the oil or seed it. My thinking is that this is not a problem. What you really want to do with heat is not really expand parts but draw lubricants into the joint by wicking action. That is all the expansion you ever need. That really does not take much heat. Physically heating to expand something like a frozen bearing off a shaft is a more aggressive heating. Don't forget you can also use electronic cold spray and cool selectively one part while the other one is hot for a greater dimensional difference. I used to do that but it is too much work but is another trick in the bag o tricks.

 

I like to characterize the whole heating and beating thing as the ever escalating application of violence. I always opt for the whisper approach and take it up in small steps until you get it done (hopefully with the minimum amount of damage). Artvonne made a good suggestion that the vise is the best place to work if possible. If it's feasible don't hesitate to take out an assembly and separate the parts more carefully on the bench.

Consider the materials you are working with. Things being heated expand at different rates, aluminum more than steel, plastic more than aluminum. Materials conduct heat differently, aluminum and copper or brass quicker than steel, stainless steel more slowly.

 

Who is beating and heating? If you under the yield point of the metals or under the threashold for temper etc.. if you beat something with "X" ft lbs is the same as using the wrech at "X" ftlbs. In fact beating something off with a airgun is way kinder to parts than slow even untorque applications. I do not advocate using a screw driver as a prybar but hey I ain't proud it works in careful hands. I'd rather have a top flight surgeon with a butter knife than an idiot armed with a scalpal

 

I will admit that there is a lot more forcing of things on cars than you would ever see on aircraft. Everything changes when time is not a factor and preservation is. While I generally agree you should use flare wrenches on line fittings, good luck finding one large enough to fit an oil line fitting. If you do it will surely come from Snap On or Matco, and will probably cost as much as that oil cooler your trying to save.

Another thought is to sacrifice the hose by cutting it off near the fitting. Then you should be able to get a box end wrench or socket over it to turn it out of the cooler. You should still hold the cooler threads with a wrench though to keep the torque off it.

 

Before you spend that big money on a large flare wrench, try this:

Measure the hose end size...and head to Sears. Purchase a box wrench in that size....and using a grinder, cut a notch in the box end just large enough to get the hose thru. Voila...You now have an inexpensive flare wrench. Granted, it's not as tough as a purpose designed flare wrench, but likely it will do the trick.

Regards,
David

 

Since the title of this thread was bit generic I would also recomend trying to hold a wet rag around the oil cooler fitting to try to keep heat away from the cooler itself. Not always an easy task. I would also use a oxy/acet with a small tip to put heat in fast so it doesn't have time to spread to the cooler. Using a propane torch would allow the heat to dissipate into the cooler and possibly melt solder joints.

Another option would be to use a cut off wheel and either cut the line as suggested before or cut the nut open and then remove the cut up fitting and replace with a new one.