Friday, January 18, 2013

Breil Cooler Fail

The newly installed Breil Cooler managed to leak a couple cups of oil over night. I removed it this AM and took it to a couple of TIG welding guys to look it over.
One guy thought he could repair it but thought it might warp in the welding process and need to be
 re-planed to insure an even sealing surface. He didn't have the equipment to re-plane the surfaces.
He figured at least 2 hours at $55.00 / hour with no guarantee that it would be usable.
Another shop looked at it too. He had a grandiose plan to remove the tubes, rebevel them, reweld them, blah, blah, blah, to the tune of 4 - 6 hours labor @ $75.00 / hr.
The seller is a "straight up" guy and offered to refund or repair the piece. It's refreshing to run into another ethical person in the world. A lot of assholes in the world who's word means nothing. I have given away a lot of parts over the years to help others out. So maybe some good "karma" has come my way. As soon as I decicided to return the part and let him know, the seller sent me over the purchase price via Pay Pal. What do you know...
Looking at the poor workmanship on the part, and the hassle / expense of sending it around the country for repairs just doesn't excite me very much. I decided to quit where I am and return the part to cut any further frustration and costs. looks like I'll be "eating" the return shipping costs.(?)
I asked for some welding opinions on a Forum site and had quite a few offers to try to repair it for free....but I have a little issue of taking advantage of such offers without some sort of reimbursement. Plus the costs of shipping it around the country and the hassle of it all.....
So it looks like I'll be a searching for a Breil Oil Cooler..... again.
Hopefully the crappy quality of this one is an anomaly?

1 comment:

RichardM said...

That's discouraging. Such a simple design too. Since you have a deep oil pan, at least I think that I read that, why do you feel there's a need for a cooler? I occasionally put my hand on the oil cooler and very rarely has the thermostat opened up. But then again I'm in a cooler climate and haven't ridden with the sidecar yet.

Gila Mtns.

Gila Mtns.