MBDiagMan
Final Approach
I hope this does not descend into an oil war thread. It's not meant to do so.
I live in a mild climate, but sometimes fly in thirty and forty degree Fahrenheit weather. I am considering rigging a poor boy preheater by aiming a torpedo heater at an angled piece of plywood or sheet metal to deflect the warm air flow into the bottom of my engine opening.
The quote below is from writings by Harry Fenton, a notable guru when it comes to the small Continental four cylinder engine family. I look forward to reading your experiences and procedures on the matter of cool weather operation of these little motors:
"Cold Weather Oil Considerations
(December 2002)
While digging through some engine parts at my hangar today I made an interesting observation. It is a balmy 25F today and was down to about 7F last night, so the hangar was still cold as a tomb at lunch. I was messing with a crank from a disassembled engine that still had the rods attached. I almost couldn't move the rods due to the stiffness of the residual 50 weight oil!! Out of curiosity, I grabbed my fish scale and to observe the pull required to over the rods. It required a 12-15lbs pull to displace the rod 90 degrees. Once the rods had been turned a dozen times the pull dropped to about 8lbs, but it was still very high.
I opened a can of 50 weight oil that had been cold soaked and it had a thick, wax-like consistency- definitely not good for lubrication! The 20w50 synthetic was better but still very sluggish to pour.
What an eye opener!! There is no way that I would fly again without preheating if the temps were below 45F. Positively, there is no way I would fly with 50w in the engine below 50 degrees as I just can't see how it can be pumped through the engine.
I'm going to take my crankshaft home and conduct some tests over the next few days with various oils and report back. Basically, my idea is to remove the rods, lube each journal with a different weight and type of oil and record the pull required to complete one revolution of the journal. I'm not sure what it will prove other than reinforcing the need to use the correct weight oil and to preheat.
Harry"
I live in a mild climate, but sometimes fly in thirty and forty degree Fahrenheit weather. I am considering rigging a poor boy preheater by aiming a torpedo heater at an angled piece of plywood or sheet metal to deflect the warm air flow into the bottom of my engine opening.
The quote below is from writings by Harry Fenton, a notable guru when it comes to the small Continental four cylinder engine family. I look forward to reading your experiences and procedures on the matter of cool weather operation of these little motors:
"Cold Weather Oil Considerations
(December 2002)
While digging through some engine parts at my hangar today I made an interesting observation. It is a balmy 25F today and was down to about 7F last night, so the hangar was still cold as a tomb at lunch. I was messing with a crank from a disassembled engine that still had the rods attached. I almost couldn't move the rods due to the stiffness of the residual 50 weight oil!! Out of curiosity, I grabbed my fish scale and to observe the pull required to over the rods. It required a 12-15lbs pull to displace the rod 90 degrees. Once the rods had been turned a dozen times the pull dropped to about 8lbs, but it was still very high.
I opened a can of 50 weight oil that had been cold soaked and it had a thick, wax-like consistency- definitely not good for lubrication! The 20w50 synthetic was better but still very sluggish to pour.
What an eye opener!! There is no way that I would fly again without preheating if the temps were below 45F. Positively, there is no way I would fly with 50w in the engine below 50 degrees as I just can't see how it can be pumped through the engine.
I'm going to take my crankshaft home and conduct some tests over the next few days with various oils and report back. Basically, my idea is to remove the rods, lube each journal with a different weight and type of oil and record the pull required to complete one revolution of the journal. I'm not sure what it will prove other than reinforcing the need to use the correct weight oil and to preheat.
Harry"