6/1 oil distribution

[ronmar]

Ever wonder what the oil does inside a 6/1 during startup/running:)

[Doug]

Thats very cool!

[Irish Artist]

I agree, very cool!

I expected more of a mess to be honest, I've considered starting up with the crankcase cover off to verify enough oil was being pumped to the roller bearings but I thought I'd end up with oil spray everywhere!

How did you film this? did you make a temp cover with a hole in it for the video cam?

[apogee_man]

Agreed, VERY cool!!!!

Nice job!

Steve

[ronmar]

I agree, very cool!

I expected more of a mess to be honest, I've considered starting up with the crankcase cover off to verify enough oil was being pumped to the roller bearings but I thought I'd end up with oil spray everywhere!

How did you film this? did you make a temp cover with a hole in it for the video cam?

It will make a mess:).  I started with a plexiglass cover,  it was obscured within about 10 seconds. If you look carefully past the spinning crank, you can see the far side of the case quickly coated with oil.  In the video you may just be able to see the plastic bag I set up and draped over the tripod to catch the spray.  The camera is just above the oil being sprayed out the access hatch.  The oil caught by the plastic runs back down to the case opening.  I will post a link to the video with the window as it gives a good idea how much oil is really flying around inside the case.

[mike90045]

Odd, I thought I'd actually see the dipper disturb the oil puddle in the sump.  I could see the far side as the oil "streak" built up, but never saw a ripple in the sump. The pipe along the inside of the crank, is that oil feed for the side bearing ?

[Irish Artist]

Hey Mike,

Watch the video again, if you look closely, you can see a wake from the dipper in the oil puddle, it's not obvious at first. I also noticed that the back wall of the crank house starts out with a streak of oil and then the entire wall ends up covered.

And, yup, that pipe on the side is the feed line from the pump injecting oil into the roller bearing.

Ronmar, curious to see that vid with the window.

Murph'

[reno-speedster]

Interesting video.  I took the cover of my engine off just after shutdown and the air was a mist of oil which I don't seem to see here.  Also, I'm surprised to the oil lines to the roller bearings.  Unlike bushings, roller bearings can be damaged by too much oil and in many cases the problem is to keep too much oil from getting to them (some applications use slingers etc. to keep the oil down in the rollers).  I too would have thought that there would be more affect on the oil in the sump.

I installed an oil pump and remote oil filter on my Ashawmegh but I brought the oil back into the case at the deck bolt over the off side camshaft bearing.  This way that bearing gets plenty of oil (which it normally does not) and this may be why I have more oil in the air inside my case. 

[ronmar]

Here is the video with the plexiglass.  The oil pumped out by the pipes goes both ways, toward the crank and toward the sidewall.  The ammount of oil that reaches the roller bearings is not all that great.  most all that hits the spinning parts of the bearing or crank is slung off radially anyway.  You will see in the plexiglass video, that the oil splash that covers the window is mainly in two vertical colums, right in line with the crank arms.

As for the far end bearing of the camshaft, I went with the reed in the mist method.  I drilled a hole thru that top cap bolt and put in a piece of stainless rod which I welded to the top of the bolt.  I tapered this rod along it's length with a grinder, down to a point that just protrudes down into the oil hole above that end bearing.  The rod catches oil spray/mist which slides down the rod into the bearing lube hole...  I am actually more worried about the other end bearing, as any oil that reaches it must be splashed thru the cam gear and flyweights and get past the IP and oil pump followers and cam lobe.

[Irish Artist]

Well thank you for satisfying my curiosity, if I kept thinkin' about it, I might of ended up puttin' on my welding helmet on and blowing oil all across SW Washington!

I understand your concern about the cam bearing on the crank side, under the gear, it can't be getting very much lube over there, but, on the other hand, I'm assuming here, this is the same design as the original listers, which have a history of running forever in a day. I haven't come across a topic in regards to this subject yet, might of missed it though. Is this a weak link in the engines design?

Thanks for sharing this with us Ronmar!

Murph'