Any tips on maximising Cooling?

[B-Boyblue]

Hi all, Using the van as my daily at the moment but going on a motorway trip on wednesday (about 200 mile round trip) and the weather looks like its going to be Scorchio at about 33 Degrees. Apart from all the usual things like Complete tinware and seals is there anything I can do to keep the engine as cool as possible? Its got 15/30 mineral Oil in at mo. Would thicker oil help 20/50 for example? I've heard that 5w/30 fully synthetic is being used. I always thought synthetic oil in aircooled motors was a no-no!
:?
Any tips would be appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[K@rlos]

If all the tin is there and it's tuned right you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[dustrat]

You are right about synthetic oil,it has not got the cooling properties for air cooled engines. The fan housings main job is to keep the oil temperature down by passing cooler air around oil cooler as well as barrels and heads.Synthetic oil runs at higher temperature which could cause engine to seize. Although they are called air cooled engines the engine is actually cooled by oil
Robert

 

[Trikky2]

You are right about synthetic oil,it has not got the cooling properties for air cooled engines. The fan housings main job is to keep the oil temperature down by passing cooler air around oil cooler as well as barrels and heads.Synthetic oil runs at higher temperature which could cause engine to seize. Although they are called air cooled engines the engine is actually cooled by oil
Robert

Sorry - but no - it isn't.

The greatest heat concentration is in the cylinder heads - which is why they are large, made of alloy, have lots of fins and the flaps direct cooling air to them.

The only oil that reaches the heads is via the pushrods to lubricate the valve gear. The quantity and flow is not sufficient to cool them.

This is why fitting an extra oil cooler on an engine thats running hot is treating the symptom and not the cause.

For Boyblue, K@rlos is right. As long as the vehicle is in good order and correctly adjusted then it will have no problem coping. These buses were used world wide including in Australia and North Africa where temperatures get a lot higher.

 

[K@rlos]

My bus has a high compression 2110, will sit at 70-80 for hours and not over heat. Admittly it is full flowed with a cooler BUT a stock engine should not get hot.

 

[dustrat]

Sorry Trikky2 ,Lets get the facts right. First of all let me say that I have been involved with VW 'air-cooled ' engines for over 50 years. I stand by the fact that I have stated they are cooled by oil.Lets first look at the cooling of cylinder heads.The heads are cooled as stated by air flow from fan housing after it has cooled the oil cooler.Why do so many people have problems with cracked heads ? The main problem here is badly adjusted carb running too lean and ignition timing not set correctly.Some people fit 009 distributors, these were never fitted to road going VW engines but were fitted to static industrial engines,ie water pumps,generators etc where engine was running at constant speed.You mentioned the flaps in the fan housing which are controlled by thermostat.The purpose of these flaps is to get the engine warmed to running temperature quickly.If that thermostat fails to open you are going to a massive heat problems. You mentioned user in Australia and North Africa, well I think you will find a lot of these guys remove these flaps so no restriction to cooling. Also I think you will find that these guys don't try to use them in general as race cars.In the 70/80's a lot of guys from Australia would travel overland to UK and then sell them to get air fare home. What you have to remember that the engine in type 2 is from a beetle and has shove nearly 2 tonne around. Over the years VW has increased the size of oil galleries and fitted a dog house oil cooler where the heat from cooler is expelled out of fan housing as well as designing twin port heads which disperse heat more.In general the oil capacity of our engines is about 2 1/2 Ltr's, not a lot unless you have an add on sump fitted.The purpose of the oil as well as cooling is to lubricate all the moving parts of engine. If that oil gets too hot it looses its viscosity and is not able to form a film between bearings and journals and we know what happens then.Fitting an extra oil cooler as K@rlos has done goes a long way to solving this problem.He says that he runs at 70/80mph with out any heating problems. I wonder how hot his engine would get with out his extra cooler.
Robert

 

[K@rlos]

I have an oil cooler on my big motor but as I say that is 10:1 compression and turns 7000rpm so will produce more heat BUT a correctly tuned 1600 with all the tin should not over heat.