I installed an aftermarket oil cooler onto the TW. I found it on Bradley Performance, and thought it would be a good and effective way to cool the air cooled TW a little more, and help the oil maintain its viscosity when it’s operating at higher temperatures and RPM’s.
On California models of the TW is a charcoal cannister similar to one installed on the Bandit. The charcoal cannister had long ago been removed by a previous owner of the TW, and all that remained was the mounting bracket, which was in the way of where I would eventually mount the cooler. So I did the only sensible thing, and ground off the mounting bracket.
I also took some grey spray paint, and painted over the exposed metal and rust spot to prevent rust damage to the frame.
The actual oil cooler. It’s fairly soft aluminum, so be careful with it. I already bent some of the fins a little.
The cooler pipes oil out of the oil filter. The kit comes with an adapter. I kept the oil filter cover, and have it on the bike in case I somehow damage the cooler assembly, and need to bypass it to limp the bike home. Please note: There is a small o-ring in the bottom hole, and IT NEEDS TO REMAIN THERE. If you’re doing this mod, or just an oil change on the TW, make sure you do not loose that o-ring, or you will leak oil.
New oil filter cover. It isn’t black, but I don’t mind. I think of the TW of a bike cobbled together with an assortment of parts, and I like having non-matching covers and stuff.
The hoses wrapped basically where I want them. The hoses are position specific. The one with the bent fitting is on top, and the straight fitting one is on the bottom.
I had the hoses loop inside the skid plate, with the top one taking a tighter turn inside the wider turn of the bottom hose. I moved them a little bit to ensure that the hoses wouldn’t touch the exhaust. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if they did, as I wrapped the exhaust. However the whole point of this was to cool the oil, and having it touch the exhaust wrap would heat it a little, which I was trying to avoid.
The cooler mounted. The most annoying part was setting the mounting clamps, and tightening them. I wish I had a third arm.
Final set up of the hoses. I looped them through the starter motor wire.
The whole system. I like how it looks, and I like how it sticks out of one side. It’s both functionally and aesthetically pleasing to look at.
Finally, I took some temperature measurements with an IR temp gun. I know this isn’t the most accurate way to measure oil temperature. However, I did not have enough time in between when I ordered the kit, and when I thought to test it, to order an oil temperature sensor. I had trouble finding anything I could mount on the TW anyways. However, below are the readings I took from the exhaust side of the head, where the temperature would be the hottest. I tried to stay at the same relative distance, and I tried riding only the same distance routes before and after. The first 10 pics are without the cooler, and the last 4 are with the cooler. I stopped taking pictures because it has begun to rain consistently, and the outside temperatures have dropped. Also I switched from celsius to farenheit a few through.
Definitely not the best testing of new equipment I’ve ever done, but I do think it does help the oil temperature a good amount. There’s also about half a cup more oil in the system, which helps overall with the wear.
Overall, the mod was not difficult to do, and it was really fun doing an upgrade on the motorcycle. It breaks the monotony of maintenance, or fixing things I broke. The kit is fairly well put together, and it wasn’t that expensive. The biggest thing though was wrapping the exhaust. I think wrapping the exhaust beforehand, then doing this upgrade made a lot of sense. The exhaust pre wrap was radiating a lot of heat, and the cooler would have absorbed a lot of that heat while stationary. While moving would help the cooler cool down, there’s no reason to heat something up if it needs to be heated up. I’d recommend wrapping the header pipe if you’re going to do this mod. As I stated in the previous maintenance blog, wrapping the headers just makes sense from a heat radiation standpoint. And if you’re going to do a mod that is intended to help cool the bike, why not do another mod that helps keep heat where it needs to be?