RHD 18 and 19 GT oil filter location

[hinch]

its an oil cooler it doesn't need to be massive. small 8inchx4inch would probably be more than sufficient and it doesn't need to be mounted up front you can mount it flat along the bottom. the diff coolers fit like that but they also have a stat controlled fan on them too.

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[drewzh]

its an oil cooler it doesn't need to be massive. small 8inchx4inch would probably be more than sufficient and it doesn't need to be mounted up front you can mount it flat along the bottom. the diff coolers fit like that but they also have a stat controlled fan on them too.

That sounds promising, thanks for your reply. I've never seen an oil cooler before, let alone installed one.

 

[hinch]

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/per...g/oil-coolers-accessories/oil-coolers-kits/#/

almost any off there would be big enough and provide enough cooling to cover outs and they're all oil-air so you don't run the risk of the core splitting and water contaminating the oil which is what happens when our factory coolers shit the bed.

I'm pretty sure you could actually just cap the water lines from the factory cooler and swap out the factory one for an oil-air 3rd party cooler though i don't think the factory setup has a stat so you'd need that so the cooler doesn't kick in until the oil is actually up to temp otherwise it works against you (this is where oil-water benefits as the water systems maintains the temp)

 

[drewzh]

I think I found the easier solution to the oil filter location access. This is actually the location I used, but from under the car which was much more difficult. It seems our RHD cars are different than the US spec cars and the access panel at the bottom isn't useable for oil filter changes. How odd. I also didn't see anything on ETIS to indicate the best way of changing the oil.

 

[v8hgt]

I would probably go air/oil if we lived somewhere warmer. But in the U.K. the water/oil solution works well as it warms the cold oil faster. Also there is no thermostat to fail. The problem with the stock cooler is that it’s made on the cheap. The laminova is a proper bit of kit. They are very popular in the Ultima community for cooling small block Chevys and appear to be beautifully made. While I see the benefit to mounting the filter on the strut tower that would mean running the oil lines up and down vertically in the engine bay. I plan to mount everything low down (as per stock), thereby minimising the length of piping required and reducing the air locks when doing an oil change. Any air lock needs pumping through and venting which doesn’t sit well with me if it can be avoided.

 

[hinch]

you could just swap out the cooler and leave the rest of the factory stuff in place just put a better quality one on literally a £40 one from demon tweaks will do it and be the right size etc.

 

[drewzh]

you could just swap out the cooler and leave the rest of the factory stuff in place just put a better quality one on literally a £40 one from demon tweaks will do it and be the right size etc.

Do we know of anyone who has gone down this route alteady? Seems like a very cost effective fix vs the expensive air/oil solutions.

 

[hinch]

Do we know of anyone who has gone down this route alteady? Seems like a very cost effective fix vs the expensive air/oil solutions.

not but it shouldn't be too difficult to grab a good qualty oil/water cooler to replace the factory one at most you'd just need a few bits of steel to weld up to make a new mounting bracket. i'd have thought most garages should be able to do it with ease

 

[v8hgt]

It’s a good idea and one that I looked at briefly. You could either find a cooler off another car that was a similar shape and make up a mounting plate, or make up a plate for a laminova. I ruled out trying this because it’s widely thought that the location of the stock cooler right next to the exhaust manifold may be contributing to the failure. Moving the cooler totally out of the way resolves this potential concern and gives room for headers. Plus if you do the job properly it’s easy to include a remote oil filter.

 

[hinch]

there's not huge amounts of room i plan on putting the oil cooler/diff cooler and gearbox cooler all towards the rear of the car between the exhausts and fitting some active fans on them with stats same as I do on the track cars I just have to get some time available to get under the car and work out what I need to buy bits wise.

 

[v8hgt]

To be fair, I question if a mustang used exclusively on road needs an oil cooler at all. Looking at the size of the thing and the small amount of coolant taken off the main flow for the cooler, I would say it’s probably an insurance for hard driving in hot countries. If memory serves the sn95 didn’t have an oil cooler as stock. Strangely it’s an insurance policy for ford that probably didn’t pay off as I suspect they had to authorise more engine replacement warranty work due to the cooler failure than they would if they simply didn’t fit one at all. My fairly stock N/A road car in the U.K. probably doesn’t need one at all. As for gearbox and diff coolers, I suspect you are either tracking yours or running a blower to need them.

 

[hinch]

both track and blower so yeah i cook my gear box and diff pretty fast put it into limp mode but yeah about the oil cooler you're probably right for street driving it probably doesn't actually need one

 

[foxspeed]

bit of an overkill for a replacement/change once a year!

 

[Burgo]

I just carried out what must be the most frustratingly difficult oil change of my life yesterday, changing the oil on my 2018 GT. All sources I found online show that on the US spec car, the oil filter is reasonably easy to access, behind a plastic panel secured by a single 7mm bolt.

Getting behind the panel was obviously easy but once you're in there, I'm presented with not an oil filter, but what appears to be a pump of some kind (not sure which... Coolant perhaps?).

The only way to unscrew the filter is to ignore this panel (which is totally useless for accessing the filter, even a child would struggle) and go through the side from the wheel (via another plastic flap) and contort your hand round a bend, giving you just enough room to turn the filter slightly. You most certainly don't have enough room to pull the filter out without spilling the contents onto the ground. I usually use a ziplock bag to cover the filter whilst I pull it out, but it's impossible to do on this car.

Either way, this access route is not at all easy on RHD 2018 cars and will result in much swearing, bruises and spilt oil. It also makes removing and tightening the filter extremely difficult.

Surely I'm doing something wrong. Is this normal? Is this an 18-19 thing only?

There must be a better way, surely!?

I tackled this job yesterday, what initially appeared to be a nightmarish and daunting task turned out to be quite simple in the end.

You are correct though the flap underneath doesn't give you access to the filter unless you have the hands of a small child with the strength of a gorilla!

When I first said to myself I was going to do this job I got all the gear out, got the car up and then when I took one look at it, I put everything away and went inside and said I'll leave this one to the pro's. After about 20 minutes I thought, I'm not going to let this beat me and I did it without loosing any skin or uttering one swear word.

I went through the side wheel arch plastic flap, granted you'll need to contort your arm to get in there and once in there you won't have much strength.

2 things got me through it. Firstly, I have mountain bike gloves that have silicone bonded to the palm of the glove for grip on the handlebars, it was perfect for getting a purchase on the filter and spinning that sucker clean off no problems at all. I was also able to spin the new one on and get it quite tight once the seal had made contact, good enough to confidently leave and be secure in the knowledge that it wouldn't leak but I also had an oil filter wrench laying around that was the perfect size for the ribbed bottom of the filter but the handle was too long to make it useful. The handle was a two piece unit with about 3" off the ring and then about 4" was riveted to that, I ground off the rivets and that just left a small handled oil filter tool that was perfect for giving the filter an extra quarter of a turn to securely tighten.

It was similar to the one pictured but with the bolt removed and the rubber handle removed just leaving the small stem attached.

https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/toolpro-toolpro-oil-filter-wrench-63-76mm/542341.html#q=oil+filter+remover&vid=q2UiTpBTM5Objz1CiI3MXA==&start=5

All in all, the whole oil change took me about an hour and the filter bit was no more than 20 minutes.

Hope this helps, it looked worse than it was.

 

[TomOz]

I tackled this job yesterday, what initially appeared to be a nightmarish and daunting task turned out to be quite simple in the end.

What filter did you use?
I'm looking at using the Ford Racing High Performance filter instead of the stock Motorcraft one. The Ford Racing is mean to be taller (hence the better filtering).
Would this pose a problem when changing the filter do you think?

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