Re: garbage in oil coolers

[bearbvd@domain.elided (Greg Hermann)]

At 9:13 AM 12/14/01, Jeff Zurschmeide wrote:
>At 12:01 PM 12/14/2001 -0500, Watry, Andrew (LNG-MBC) wrote:
>>Re Steve's sad tale about shot gumming up his GTA engine, I've read in
>>air-cooled Porsche racing circles, and general aviation piston airplanes,
>>which both depend on oil coolers, that if you ever have a catastrophic
>>engine failure, always throw away the oil cooler, because it will have
>>gotten metal bits in it that there's no real way to get out.
>
>
>Maybe I'm whistling past the graveyard, but on my racing A-H Sprite,
>I plumbed the full-flow oil filter before the oil cooler, to catch any
>schmutz and save me having to spend the extra C note every
>time I grenade one of my self-basting time bombs.
>
>So far (sound of madly knocking on wood like a Edinburgh tattoo),
>I've not lost a motor to old grit lying in wait to strike when I
>least expect. I lose them to other things.

Don't go getting a false sense of security here!!! Most oil filters have a
differential pressure actuated bypass valve in them--so that, when the
filter gets sufficiently plugged with "stuff", the valve opens and lets the
oil continue to flow, debris and all !! Good chance that, no matter how
ofter you change the filter, that if you "lose" an engine, there could be
enough "stuff" to plug up the filter and cause the bypass valve to open
before you get it shut down !!!

Greg
>
>
>JZ

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided