I am just throwing this out to the forum. Is it even possible to repair an aluminum oil cooler? I have never been able to. The closest I came was last year when I had to modify and extend pipes on an oil cooler that I bought that was made wrong. I think that the only reason that repair worked was because no oil had gone through the cooler. To be perfectly honest, I am not very good at welding aluminum. In my area there is a particularly talented aluminum welder and a specialty radiator shop. Neither will touch a used aluminum oil cooler.
I guess that when the weld hits any oil trace, instant porosity. Just my guess. Simon C
I had a specialized shop weld a cracked a/c condenser so i would think a hyd oil cooler MAY be able to be welded by the right shop/person. It would also depend where its leaking
We just had a bracket come loose on our 8235R Deere. It caught the fan, radiator and intercooler. Instantly dumped all the coolant out of the tractor. Deere wanted $2300.for the radiator, aftermarket sad $1400. We took it to a radiator repair shop. They made no promises that it could be repaired, but gave it a shot. Their expert couldn't get the radiator side to hold pressure after multiple attempts. We ended up buying the aftermarket radiator and intercooler. Ended up being quite the expensive repair. The aftermarket radiator had a boss that didn't match the original quite right, which wouldn't allow it to bolt up without some additional grinding. Everything appeared fine until one bolt hole just wouldn't line up no matter what. After a bunch of screwing around, it was found that the boss was bigger than the original. Ground it down and then everything went back. I'm sure the labor we paid for the mechanic to figure that out was about equal to the extra price we could have paid for the OEM part and having the tractor back a day sooner.
That is exactly what happened to an after market radiator that the company I was working for bought for an excavator. Had to be modified to fit. OEM would of been same price. Simon C