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Oil Temperature sending unit



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 18th 04, 02:39 PM
Corky Scott
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Default Oil Temperature sending unit

Many of you know this but for those who do not, I'm working on a
Christavia Mk4 with a Ford V6 for the engine.

Last winter our EAA chapter invited the local DAR to speak during a
meeting. The guy turned out to be a crusty old codger who appeared to
be of an age where he could care less what anyone thought of him or
what he said. He basically dissed any and all alternative engines.
While listening to him I came to realise that this guy would likely be
the person who inspected my airplane. I'd been planning to test the
engine extensively prior to actually flying, but this meeting produced
the impetus to actually make that happen.

I'm at the stage of construction where I need to finalize the engine
installation before I can finish the fuselage. The shape of the
fuselage and the firewall depend on the engine installation. Before I
finalize the engine installation, I need to put it through it's run in
and extended testing. I built an engine test stand that is tall
enough to allow the engine to run with the prop installed. It's fully
independent, with a fuel tank, fuel pump, battery, radiator etc. etc.
I mounted casters on the stand so I can winch it into my pickup and
cart it off into the woods to run the thing without bothering the
neighbors.

I've been installing instruments on the instrument panel of the test
stand so that I can record readings in a log that I will show the DAR.

Installed on the test stand instrument panel a a tach, a cooling
system pressure guage, oil pressure guage, oil temperature guage (more
about that later), water temperature guage and a hobbs meter. Some of
the guages I got from Summit Racing, the tach came from "Datcon" after
seeing the tach in Sport Aviation on a homebuilt 3/4 size Jenny.

About the oil temperature guage. It also came from Datcon and it
arrived without the sending unit. This turned out to be a little
problematic in that Datcon was a distributer and did not sell pieces
to private individuals. The told me I had to buy the sending unit
from one of their distributers. So they gave me several to choose
from and I called the first company. They never heard of Datcon and
were surprised to hear they were designated distributers. Datcon is
owned by Maxima Technologies and they produce Stewart Warner guages.
When I mentioned that, they allowed as perhaps they did have some of
those, but they could not find the sensor, even when I gave them the
part number.

Next business said they did actually have the sensor, but did not want
to send it to me. I could drive the 50 miles to get it though, if I
wanted. I didn't.

I had the additional problem of figuring out where I could put the
sensor. I did not have any outlets left to use as the one oil port
was occupied by the oil pressure sending unit. On the internet I
found a VDO site for BMW's. They had an oil pressure sending unit
that replaced the oil drain plug. I thought that was a terrific
solution and bought one immediately. I hoped that it would end up
being the same size as the drain plug in the Ford, as the Ford was a
Windsor engine and was all metric.

It wasn't, of course. Now I had to figure out how I'd install this
thing. I measured it and found that it was 12mm size with 1.5 pitch
threads. I checked in my tap and die set (terrific purchase a year
ago, I use it all the time) and found that I did have a 12mm tap that
was 1.5 pitch.

I could not just punch a hole in the oil pan though, I needed
something that would hold a few threads. Also, the oil pan was not
only installed and painted, all the bolts that held it to the block
were drilled and safety wired. It would be a big job to removed it to
weld a flange on the inside.

Instead, I picked up my angle grinder with it's flapper disc and
cleaned off the paint on left side of the oil pan where there was a
flat surface. I scrounged around the shop and found a rectangular
piece of mild steel that was about 1/4" thick. I scribed a circle
about two inches in diameter and nipped off the corners on the band
saw, then rounded things off more on the bench grinder.

This piece of material already had a hole in it, which I'd ream out to
the proper size to tap, and I used the hole to chuck the piece onto a
bolt and tightened the bolt into the drill press. Turning the press
on, I used my angle grinder to trim the piece down a bit and round
over what would be the outer edge to facilitate welding.

Then I drilled out the hole using the 11/32 drill recommended on the
tap, and clamped the flange to the oil pan.

Using a medium size tip, and a large flame, I heated the flange till
it got molten, and then slipped the flame to the oil pan while adding
filler rod and made sure the puddle spread out into a good weld. This
technique worked well to concentrate the head on the thick flange
rather than the thin wall of the oilpan which prevented burn through.

I tacked two sides, then removed the clamp and finished welding all
the way around. It was a tough welding job because I could not rest
my hands on anything and had to hold them out at length while holding
the tip and the filler rod. But the welds looked good when I was done
and I put the torch away while letting the flange cool.

Now, using the hole as my guide, I drilled through the oil pan. Then
I fixed the tap in the handle and smeared the tap with grease to pick
up as much of the metal shavings and particles as it could. After
inserting the tap into the hole and firmly turning it, trying to keep
the tap from wobbling, I finally got the tap started and turned it in
until the hole was completely threaded. I lucked out in that the
flange was sited in a spot where I could turn the tap handle without
any interference from engine parts or the test stand. Of course, this
was after I removed the starter, which was blocking access to this
part of the oil pan.

Once the hole was tapped, I coated the threads of the sending unit
with teflon paste and threaded it into the hole. It snugged up
nicely. The unit does not have a screw to attach the lead to it, it
has a flat protrusion. Looking at it sideways it looks like a T,
looking at it from above it looks round. I have a box of wire
connectors and found a female spade that slid right onto it with
enough resistance to hold itself in place. I crimped the wire to it
and connected to the temp guage.

All the guages are basically wired identically, which is a great
relief and makes for sanity while wiring. The same post on every
guage is connected to the sensor, the same post to ground, the same
post to the ignition switch. Guage lighting is handled virtually the
same for each guage. There is either a post to connect the lighting
lead to, or the bulb has a socket with a power and ground coming out
of it. But in all cases, the bulb is at the top of the guage.

Nice that there is this type of industry uniformity.

Next up, now that all is pretty much done, is to finalize the carb
base plate installation (nothing is final torqued yet or sealed), then
adjust the carburator float level, add coolant, add oil, prime the oil
gallaries and try cranking it.

The PSRU is not final adjusted yet, that had to wait for the engine to
be running to make sure that the belt runs centered in the cogs. Once
that is adjusted and confirmed, the bolts that hold the cogs
adjustment in place will be final torqued and safetied.

The engine will be checked for leaks, run till it's warmed up, then
shut down and the oil drained and replaced, and the oil filter
replaced. With fresh oil, I can then mount the prop and begin to run
the engine up against the load of the prop. Hmm, maybe I should buy
myself a cheap motorcycle helmet to use while standing in the prop
blast...

Corky (tie it down firmly) Scott
  #2  
Old October 18th 04, 11:14 PM
Kyle Boatright
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Default


"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
snip

The engine will be checked for leaks, run till it's warmed up, then
shut down and the oil drained and replaced, and the oil filter
replaced. With fresh oil, I can then mount the prop and begin to run
the engine up against the load of the prop. Hmm, maybe I should buy
myself a cheap motorcycle helmet to use while standing in the prop
blast...

Corky (tie it down firmly) Scott


I think you'll be amazed at how quickly a loud engine/prop on a test stand
will make bystanders retreat. We had a fellow in our EAA chapter run his
Subaru 6 cylinder on a test stand at one of our meetings. The members all
started off about 10' from the test stand. As soon as it started, people
backed off to 20', and when he wound it up a little, the chickens among us
ducked around the corner of the hangar. It was much quieter and less windy
there.

KB


  #3  
Old October 19th 04, 12:58 AM
Morgans
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Posts: n/a
Default


"Corky Scott" wrote

snip

I built an engine test stand that is tall
enough to allow the engine to run with the prop installed.


Snip

With fresh oil, I can then mount the prop and begin to run
the engine up against the load of the prop. Hmm, maybe I should buy
myself a cheap motorcycle helmet to use while standing in the prop
blast...

Corky (tie it down firmly) Scott


If you are running the same prop that you will be flying with, you will not
be getting full RPM, for break-in, and for maximum HP (read heat).

Will this be a problem?
--
Jim in NC


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