Gasman wrote:
[quote]ukrbmw wrote:
[quote]Scott,
It was nice meeting you this past weekend.
Not for nothing, but I think it might be time to let a professional get in there!
Alex.[/quote]
Hate to say it Scott, but the tuition expense for the University of Hard Knocks is too high.[/quote]
Nah, you guys have it all wrong. 2 yrs ago I was intimidated by the idea of taking off the rocker arm cover. Now I’ve pulled a motor, rebuilt it, and reinstalled it. And almost all of it unaided. That’s major shit. I’ve checked a block that every American boy should check.
Sure, there were some hiccups along the way that had to be worked thru. Nothing goes perfectly the first time. And now my head is getting repaired because I made a bad call on using what looked like a perfectly serviceable t belt. It takes experience to learn what shortcuts you can and can not take.
2yrs ago breaking rockers and bending valves would have been a major emotional event. Now it’s no big deal. My head will be back a week and a couple hours and beers later proud #6 will roar to life.
Subject change. Uncharacteristically, I had to back off a bit on an obsession. In this case, my sensors, switches and gauges. Here’s what I had planned.
–Oil pressure at galley
–Oil P warning switch (red) at galley
–Oil pressure near pump (to Traqmate, not a gauge)
–Oil P warning switch (amber) near pump
–Oil pressure at Accusump
–Oil temp near block
–Oil T warning switch near block
–Oil temp after cooler (a switch allows a gauge to monitor both oil temps.
–Coolant temp
–Coolant temp switch (amber)
Voltage
With this system I’d monitor oil P in the logical place but a very bright amber light would flash if the oil pump ran dry. It wouldn’t be a crisis because the sump would cover it, but I’d still know in realtime that the oil pump had just sucked air.
I don’t need to see oil pressure at the pump in the middle of a turn, but it would be interesting to have the data in the Traqmate file.
I thought that it would be interesting to not only know the oil temp leaving the motor, but also the oil temp returning to the motor. But I don’t need to know both simultaneously, so the two sensors go thru a switch to a common gauge.
I wanted the gauge on the sump so I could see what it’s doing, particularly during vehicle start up and shut down.
Tonight I was hooking up the last of the sensors, putting in a gauge for the sump and putting in the temp switch. I had to disassemble 1/2 of the increasingly complex oiling system and get increasingly imaginative re. how to add more sensors. I drilled and tapped two steel fittings so I could thread in temp sensors.
My plumbing, festooned with sensors, started some concerns that increasing complexity was just increasing the number of possible failure points. I decided to put a limit on the insanity and forgo the oil temp warning light. Putting a single sensor into the oiling system is pretty easy, but when you find yourself at 1AM trying to figure out how to put the 8th sensor in, you have to ask yourself if you’ve lost your mind.
I think warning lights serve a reasonable purpose for pressure, but maybe for temperature I can just keep an eye on my damn oil gauge. Next winter I can relook the plumbing and see if I can’t simplify it some by fabricating some custom piece of plumbing that can handle most of the sensors all by itself.
