Cooler pipe break - Snetterton

[AlexGTT]

As some of you may have seen in the events thread, I had an oil cooler pipe fail at Snetts on Monday. I fitted an up-rated oil cooler a year or so ago. It was a Turner Motorsport unit and was meant for a racecar but was never fitted. So, I snapped it up at a good price (thanks Julian ).

I did 3 laps at Snetts and had a rather large slide throught the left, under the bridge after the straight. Unusual as I was still warming up and going through much slower than normal. Next thing I see loads of oil smoke out the back of the car, pull into the pits and shut it all down. No oil or engine warning lights of any kind and the engine sounded fine. Got out of the car and the reason for the dramatic drift was explained by the trails of oil dripping from the tyres! Pools of oil began to drain from the engine under tray which appeared to be full of oil when I lifted the bonnet. It all looked quite dramatic but was quite soon diagnosed as a leaking oil cooler pipe.

An RAC recovery saga then unfolded but we eventually reached Simpson Motorsport................very late. Anyway they found the "up-rated" cooler pipe like this and have made up and fitted a new, stronger one. The pipe heat sleeve wasn't worn through but the pipe was underneath!