For You Ls430 Owners. Gear Box Cooler Fitted Today

The-Acre · May 9, 2015

For all you LS430 owners who have the thought of corrosion at the bottom of the radiator in the back of your minds!

It may never happen, but as this was an easy job, at least I now don't have the concern of water in the transmission at some stage.

The cooler (13 row) including hose and fittings was £66, and I had to get an engineer friend to make me two reducers from 12.5mm - 10mm. If I did it again I would try to find a kit that comes with 10mm hose rather than 12.5. The only other thing I needed was some metal brackets that I shaped accordingly.

The cooler is fixed to the thick aluminium behind the bumper with stainless self tappers, and one more bracket at the top. The best part is that it was all done from the top, so no crawling under the car.

I've taken it for a drive and all seems OK at this stage.

omega1200 · May 10, 2015

a oil cooler is something I will be fitting at some stage to my gs300 where does it connect to the gearbox?.

I would have rubber mounted the cooler and I would have done my pipework different as you have lots of clamps that can all be leak spots.

is this thermostatic controlled and how much extra oil did you add?

cheers

The-Acre · May 10, 2015

a oil cooler is something I will be fitting at some stage to my gs300 where does it connect to the gearbox?.

I would have rubber mounted the cooler and I would have done my pipework different as you have lots of clamps that can all be leak spots.

is this thermostatic controlled and how much extra oil did you add?

cheers

There are two metal 10mm pipes that come from the gearbox and join the rubber hose 300mm before the radiator. I get your point about the clips which is why I would get a 10mm kit if I did it again. Having said that, it looks like I have loads of clips but one is replacing an original that I took off, so there are really only two that connect the reducing piece that I had made. I guess it could be rubber mounted, but I can't see why it should be a problem if not, many coolers on other cars are solid fixed.

It isn't thermostatic controlled and I don't know how much oil it will take as it's going to Toyota on Tuesday for a service, they said they'll top it up for me to save buying 5 ltrs! I lost only about a teaspoon when I disconnected the old pipe.

I can't image that it will take more than about a quarter of a liter to top it up.

bookend · May 19, 2015

Where did you get the cooler from please.

This is something I would like to fit to my 430.

39buss · May 19, 2015

This looks like a MUST DO job for all LS owners. A simple and inexpensive way to safe guard your gearbox and save the car from the scrap heap. I would think you need to flush the integrated oil cooler under the radiator to expel as much oil as possible and blank off or link the two stub ends with a length of pipe just in case the bottom of the rad fails and you'll lose all the coolant and all your good work would be in vain. Once again the LOC proves its worth as an excellent forum.

The-Acre · May 19, 2015

Where did you get the cooler from please.

This is something I would like to fit to my 430.

I got it on eBay. They may even supply one with 10mm fittings if you ask, which would make the job easier (not that it's difficult anyway)

And I used about 600ml of fluid to top it up.

Here's the link, but they seem to be out of stock. Plenty more available through other sellers, although a lot from China!

After doing some research it was the "stacked plate" cooler that was suggested as being the most efficient, which is what I used.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370888636929?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=640119921904&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

The-Acre · May 19, 2015

This looks like a MUST DO job for all LS owners. A simple and inexpensive way to safe guard your gearbox and save the car from the scrap heap. I would think you need to flush the integrated oil cooler under the radiator to expel as much oil as possible and blank off or link the two stub ends with a length of pipe just in case the bottom of the rad fails and you'll lose all the coolant and all your good work would be in vain. Once again the LOC proves its worth as an excellent forum.

That's so obvious I feel like an idiot! I was wondering what to do with the hoses I disconnected from the radiator, I didn't think of just linking them back, Doh! So as you say, the forum proves its worth again.