At 02:15 AM 7/11/99 -0400, you wrote: >Just fly the plane. The bottom line I got from the rep was unless the >pressure fell below 15lbs under full throttle
I don't think you should take low oil pressure lightly, until you confirm that it isn't a problem by checking the engine over. Maybe you've already done this, so you might be OK. I had my pressure slowly drop to 25 lbs once, in a Continental A-65. It was a real hot day, and after I landed a couple of "old timer" A&Ps at the airport said that it was fine. Those engines are "just that way", they said. Well, it wasn't fine. A piston pin plug had come apart and clogged the oil screen. The low pressure, while right at the low-pressure red line, was indeed a problem. If I had known better, I would have checked things out and found the clogged screen. Instead, I took their advice and flew the thing home. Well, along the way the screen finally caved in and allowed lots of aluminum to become embedded in the bearings. I was lucky that no oil holes were clogged enough to block oil flow to a bearing. If an oil hole had become blocked, or the aluminum had reduced the running clearance in a bearing enough, I would probably have had a bearing fail and lost a rod. So I needed a complete overhaul. If I had caught it before the screen caved in, I probably could have just flushed the engine and that would have been the end of it. Therefore, I highly recommend looking your engine over very carefully to make sure the low pressure isn't caused by something that could be a disaster waiting to happen. If it's just excessive bearing clearances, maybe that's fine, I don't know. I still wouldn't fly it below pressure limits, though. I think someone said that the pressure-relief springs aren't usually a problem, but I have seen a couple of springs that had worn against the housing and were weaker than new springs, so it's still worth looking at. The thing to do is put in a new one, not shim the old one. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Dold ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://home.pacbell.net/sdold/ Say NO to useless over-quoting ----------------------------------------------------------------
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