Engine Guard Oil Cooler?

I am new to this forum, so first off, Hello to everybody. I run a 2004 Electraglide Classic. I am wanting to ad an oil cooler and can remember reading about using your engine guard to do this. Has anyone here done this and have you run into any problems with this setup?

One time at band camp I saw a girl and an engine guard...oops another forum sorry.

Actually, a feller Sisco knows has run this setup for years on all his bikes. First time I saw it asked if it worked. He told me to touch the bar... Now, it was summer in the early morning about 7:00 or so and only about 90º in sunny Tucson AZ but, this bar was HOT to the touch. He said that it seemed to work and was worth the effort.

This was EVO based so all he did was slice into the return line after the filter and let it push from there. Pretty hard to tell it was even there.

do you think there might be a chance of contamination from inside of the bar?

I do not think there is much of a chance of contamination. The bars are sealed. I cut the crash bars for the saddlebags on my bike to make a cheap low mount and they were very clean inside. I would think the engine guard would be the same.

This may be a dumb question but how hot does your oil have to be before there's a problem? If I lived in Michigan I'm not sure if I'd ever need an oil cooler unless I rode the bike in day to day rush hour traffic in the heat of summer. I've had my bike get a little warm but I'm running synthetic. I'd be more concerned with the oil not getting hot enough. Up this way at least.

oil coolers dont always work.......

If you are in rush hour traffic an oil cooler wont do much good. gotta have air passing by to remove the heat from the cooler. Unless you ride constantly in very hot weather i dont think oil coolers are worth the money and effort to install. There are some that have thermostats built in that bypass the cooler until the oil comes up to temp.

Well duh!!!! Yep, what the heck was I thinking ?
As you can guess, I'm not running an oil cooler

BUT, last I looked there was no radiator or fan to cool my evo while stopped in traffic.......to each his own!!

no prob, didnt take it that way.

ride safe.

I did the crash bar oil cooler on my 2004 FLHRCI. The best advice I can give on it is to use the largest fittings, e.g. 1/4 ipt, on the crash bar you can. Also, put in a third fitting to drain it unless you rig it differently like I did to mine. Anyway, you will carry an extra quart or more of oil. The additional best advice is this: plumb it to the oil return line between the engine and sump. Otherwise you will have one really dry start up if you plumb the crash bar cooler to fill before the oil gets to the engine such as by using the oil filter adapter set up (unless you drill a hole and put a filler cap on the crash bar which is a bit excessive for most folks). I also run a bypass/secondary oil filter at about 1 micron (Amsoil filter) and carry another quart of oil in it. Yeah, I run about 6 quarts of oil in a two cylinder engine, but I run it for 300 miles or so before I change the oil. I run this set up with the 35 micron absolute stainless oil filter as the primary oil filter. The entire system works together and I choose to not run one part of it without all the other parts of the system. As far as thermostats, well, it depends where you live and the ambient temperature variations. I don't think BMW runs a theromastat on their cooler. Anyway, the 1 micron bypass/secondary filter removes condensation, too. BTW, I used aeroquip sockless fittings and hoses for the crash bar set up: no hose clamps. Use the blue hose as it has higher temp ratings than the black hose. If blue offends you, put a hose cover on it.

BTW, none of this is HD approved or recommended. It is just what I did and my 114+ Millenium build runs fairly cool. I would hate to think how hot it would run without this set up.

Hope this helps.

3000 miles or so

Does anyone have a diagram of this? Do you drill and tap the fittings into the bar? Does the oil filter adapter thing have a built in bypass? somebody post me a link on this. Please.

Agreed, nice setup. Can you post some images?

Yes please!! If anyone would have a diagram on this I would appreciate it. I live in south louisiana and last winter didn't even get a frost so I'm thinking a thermostat would not help or hurt in any way. Hotroadking, I agree that it does help even in stop and go traffic. Sort of like the old radiators we had in school. Radiated heat is lost heat.

I don't have a diagram of how its done exactly but I saw this kit in the J&P cycles catalog...I'm sure CD could get his hands on it for a better price...J&P doesn't seem to sell anything at discount but their catalogs are free and have nice color pics.

http://www.jpcycles.com/productgrou...arch=Crash bar oil cooler&store=Harley&page=1

I suspect I'll end up doing this someday.

Not that you're going to grab the engine guard with your hand, but I imagine the guard will get quite hot. Sounds like a cool setup. Does this work better than actual oil coolers designed as an add-on?