If that takes place, then he will also have another issue to deal with.
Air in that crash bar that has to go somewhere after start-up.
Will his motor starve for while, as this displaced oil is "catching up"?

Without having fins on the crashbar, you might as well be installing an auxilery oil tank for the extra volume of oil. No need for it to be shaped as a crashbar. Install a tank. Better yet, install one with fins on it. Matter of fact, they make those. They call them oil coolers.

 

Big steel pipes do not transfer heat very well let alone the extra volumetric oil capacity the pump will have to provide.
On mine I will stick to the standard HD cooler.

 

There is a reason why some people SHOULD only buy stuff to have some one else install it...

And they want to turn it around on those that have the initiative to do things themselves. It ain't because I can't afford it, it's because I CAN DO IT!

Too many tv commercials draining this country of the very things we grew our reputation upon. Now that reputation has turned to ****, and those same people wonder why...

 

I ran a crashbar oil cooler for years without problems.

I stopped using it when I came upon a good used HD oil cooler and thought I'd give it a try too. The results were the same drop in temps. I would NOT hesitate to go back to it. It does get HOT, expecially on the inlet side where I needed gloves to touch it. It got so hot in the summer that it melted the paint on the inside of my lower fairings. The outlet side is just a tad cooler. As long as you seal everything well it won't be a problem. Cleaning the inside of the bar is important as you need to remove ALL traces of metal from drilling and tapping. I used my shop vac and forced air. Finally I used the shop vac to pull some string through, and then followed it with a shotgun cleaning patch tied to the string to clean out the whole inside. It cooled as well as an oil cooler, that's my experience, others experience will no doubt be different.

 

Ya gotta figure on Bourgets the frame is the oil tank. I don't know what it does to cool it but my buddy had one that was all hopped up and never had a cooling problem.

 

I can back up Paniolo's claims as being the same as my own. I modified my 01 FLHT to run from the return side of the oil pump through the bars and back to the oil pan...which I don't think you can do on 07+ bikes because they internally routed the oil returns in the case I believe. With this setup, I was riding in 102* ambient heat on a rally trip and my temp gauge never went over 200* till we got stuck at a road construction area and had to wait about 10 minutes for traffic in our direction to get the go ahead. During that idling period, temps climbed to 210* and stopped. Damned impressive for only about $60 in parts including a thermostat. You couldn't hold the tube on my inlet side when fully heated up, but on the return side you could...it was about like handling hot dishes right out of the dishwasher...a very noticeable temp drop from the inlet side. I ended up laying that bike down and sliding across the road with it and it didn't burn through the heavy tubing used in these engine gaurds either...so I laugh at those who think this is unsafe or that your hiway pegs are going to get hot. I also never noticed any delay in oil pressure building nor noticed any return leakage when I'd check my oil level after the bike had sat for a while. I had put at least 30,000 miles on that bike with that mod and never had a leak or any other problem. Maybe thats cuz I'm such a damn fine wrench...or not.

I'd have done the same mod to my 05 roadglide here, but it had an HD premium low mount oil cooler on it when I bought it...but I may end up making the change in the future as I see the fins are pretty beat up and bent from eating rocks down there behind the front wheel. If I had a choice between the crash guard oil cooler and paying a bunch more money for some finned model, I'll take the engine guard.

PS: My FLHT didn't have the hard fairing lowers so I couldn't attest to having any problem with the heat affecting them or the paint as Mark had. I did run the nylon HD soft lowers...or chaps and they never deformed or disfigured at all.

 

Only downside is it will get hot to the touch.Was going to do the same thing to my 06 bike,but the motor works so good do not need cooler with 60wt oil.

 

Funny! I never noticed that. Guess I always look more at his avatar than reading his sig!

 

I would have two concerns.
1. getting the junk out of it initally.
2. Have to have a thermostat to bypass when the temps get low.

 

An oil cooler mounted down low on the front of the frame just seems a lot more efficient than using the engine guard as an oil cooler. Thats an awful lot more oil and distance for the engine oil pump to move the oil. Would it cause starvation or oil pressure problems? I am not sure but it does push the boundaries a bit. Plus that hot guard would end up burning your hand or leg at some point.