Hi All,
I was wondering if anyone here had made oil hard lines. for their oil coolers out of 3003-o type aluminum with AN37 degree flares.
Does anyone here think hard lines would cause problems or risk breaking.

Thanks,

 

Any reason you don't want to run flexible hose of some kind? Not saying that it wouldn't work, but I would probably run steel lines instead of aluminum for something as critical as an oil line.

 

I wanted to make the lines rigid to keep it cleaner and more permanent / less chance of rubbing/getting caught/rubber breaking. There would be 1-2 feet of Startlite between the engine and the hard lines. The hard lines would be on the body of the car and linking the Oil cooler (setrab 125) to the thermostat (canton), the thermostat to the filter (canton 6") and then the filter to the flexible auroquip engine oil lines.

 

If you secure the lines from vibration it should be fine.

 

Anyone here actually do aluminum hard lines?

 

I did it on a friends coolant system, but we used 6061-T6 and used wiggins clamps for connection points.

I know that's of no help to you though....

 

I see no problem with that, but that thickness is a little thin. Why not bump it up a bit to make it stronger. I would also have the hardlines flared to a flexible line too on both sides. How do you plan to secure the hardline?

 

5/8" 304 stainless with an .049 wall should work well. Onlinemetals.com has the nice seamless stuff and is pretty inexpensive.

 

hard lines are fine but you need some sort of give for the vibration. ss will last longer than al. but still something will give sooner or later. if anything try to use some wiggins / clamshell connections. or if you want a more cost effective solution use only a small portion of braided hose to connect a section of hardline on the motor side to a section of hardline on the chassis. just my opinion from my experience.

 

I ended up going with mostly aeroquip startlite hose.

 

Interesting, did you happen to come across this page on a web search?

http://www.performanceforum.com/wesv...a/oil/oil.html

 

IMO, I would do something similar to a typical A/C line. in other words:

AN soft line -> Hardline mounted to the body -> oil cooler.

 

No... but my setup is pretty close. I posted some pictures on d-series.org

 

Post them here...

 

Fwiw, the only issue there is the price for a flaring kit goes from ~$100 to ~$500 when you move from a soft metals kit to a hard metals kit.

 

Why risk oil fire or engine failure on a soft metal line? If you cant afford the flare tools then use Startlite hose or something along those lines. That soft hand bendable alum line is garbage. Just never run hard line between two objects that vibrate at different rates.

 

If he secures the hardline to the frame rail there won't be any issues. The 5/8 .035 is rated at ~300psi.

 

how is aluminum tubing garbage? SS or aluminum you should still have hard lines secured to the body/frame with a flexible connection going to the engine...the 305psi rating for the 5/8" .035 aluminum tubing is max working pressure not burst.


GPNY - below is some SS equipment far from $500

37degree SS flare tool - http://www.speedwaymotors.com/37-Deg...Line,9067.html

5/8" tubing bender - http://cgi.ebay.com/Imperial-Eastman...lenotsupported

 

Good tools for under 100

 

My point is the soft alum line is the softest hard line you can use, and is easy to damage, often comes in rolls so getting it straight sucks. Using SS or Mild would be my choice for everything. Sure the 3003 will work just from my experience has its drawbacks, now if you bump up to something like they use in planes like a 5052-0 you will find will just be a much nicer piece in the end.