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scdiver's avatar
scdiver
Explorer II
Sep 05, 2014

Oil Leak in oil cooler

Last night I was reading on this forum of someone that had a workhorse engine blow possibly because of an oil leak. Well, today I found an oil leak in my MH. I have a 1996 35ft Rexhall Aerbus with a 1995 p30 chassis and a 454 engine. As I was under the front end lubing I had DW start the engine and turn the steering wheel so I could get at some of the fittings. I noticed some oil on the frame. I let the engine run to warm up when I saw a large puddle of oil under the front. It took me just a minute to find the leak. I have a cooler that the top 2/3rds is the air conditioning condenser and the lower 1/3rd is a oil cooler. The oil cooler part is leaking. I called my local radiator shop and he said that it would need replacing. This unit must be made of unobtanium as the radiator shop could not even find a listing for such a unit. As we are leaving in 3 weeks for a month long vacation I decided to order a heavy duty separate oil cooler and just install it in front off the frame. thus bypassing the original cooler. The auto parts shop said they will have the cooler in tomorrow so I know what I will be doing this weekend.

Even though this is bad news at least I am happy about 2 things. One I am happy I did not procrastinate on doing the chassis lube so that I found this problem in time to fix before we need to leave. The second is that the temperature in St. Louis is supposed to go down this weekend. It was hot today.

Has any one heard or seen an air conditioner condenser and oil cooler in one unit or is this just a Rexhall thing?
  • Are you sure that the oil cooler is not part of your engine cooling radiator?
  • No the engine radiator is behind this cooler and the air conditioning lines are attached to the top 2/3rds of the coils.
  • Well, thank you for bringing this to my attention, and added to the list of things to check when I take delivery of my "new to me" 1996 HR Vacationer, also on a 95 P-32 Chevy chassis. The combining of the two together in one unit is strange to me also, but with the tight spaces in a MH, I can see why they do it! With that said, I would have done the same as you, and put a separate oil cooler on it! Good luck, and have fun out there!!