Oil cooler leak

[90mav]

Just bought a patrol a few weeks ago for the first time in years. 2004 zd30 series3 manual.
I got it very cheap as the previous owner told me it had a blown head or head gasket but after some investigations I discovered the oil cooler had corroded between a pressure gallery and the coolant gallery.
What a freaking mess to clean up, lucky super cheap had degreaser on sale...
seems to be ok now though I still haven’t driven it far to really give it a test.
Anyone had a similar problem? Is it common?

[mudski]

Never seen that before, but this tells me that the owner did not look after the Patrol or thought about his/ her coolant. No wonder they had head issues. I dare say to be prepared for future coolant related issues.

[nipagu7]

so did you actually fix the leek or just clean it up at this stage . any photos . never heard of this happening before . if / when it is sorted might be a good idea to flush both the coolant and oil systems.

[90mav]

I flushed the coolant system with degreaser but it still has small amounts of oil seeping out. I’ve replaced the cooler housing and it seems to have worked. The head is fine afaik and not pushing out bubbles or mixing coolant/oil.
I thought it was one of the o rings to start with but when I was cleaning the cooler up I noticed it was badly corroded, and once I got a replacement one I could see how bad the old one was! I suspect a lack of good maintenance was the culprit...
Well it WAS cheaper than a blown head to fix so I cannot complain.

[mudski]

Dont use degreaser to flush a cooling system. The chemicals in the degresser will attack any rubber orings or seals within the cooling system. e.g water pump seal. the absolute best cleaner on the market is the Fleetguard Restore plus. Cannot be bought at car shops, SCA, Repco etc. Only from truck parts shops.