oil heater

[billyko]

I just bought a long-ez last month. I live in Missouri. Hard to fly around in the cold season around this area. I am interest to install an oil heater for the cabin heat. I am looking for electric oil pump to pump the oil from the engine to an added oil cooler in the front. Anyone can recommend where to look for such an electric oil pump?  Thanks!

[admin]

http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecId=156

There is also a CSA article about this pump.

[GlennBob]

Billyko,

Any reason you don't want to use the pump in the engine ?  Couldn't you just plumb it in series or paralell with the regular oil cooler ?  You could save the 3.5 lbs and $200.00.  Let me know how you come out. I have to do the same thing. I'm up in Wisconsin, East of OSH.  Drop me a line at ezskyboy@hughes.net.  
Glennbob

[Waiter]

Take a look at

www.iflyez.com

Look under ARTICLES - OIL HEAT.

I'll be changing this so the heat exchanger and blower will be in the rear seat thigh support, but it will still get its hot oil supply via the regular engine oil pump

Waiter

[GlennBob]

Waiter,

I've seen your heater on your site, but it's hard to catch all the details from the pics there.   Why are you going to move the heater to the rear thigh support ?  Weight and Bal ?  or more room up front ?   Has this system worked well for you ?

Glennbob

[GlennBob]

Waiter,

I went and re-visited your site on the oil heat.  Downloading the article and drawings helped alot. ! !  Thanks a heap ! !   You're a champ ! !

Glennbob

[billyko]

Thank you for the infromation.

The reason for not using the oil pump in the engine and add the electric oil pump is for added safty. In case the front oil cooler or the oil line leaks oil, the engine will alway has at least 2qt of oil and will keep running.

Anyone know if the oil line will hurt the body of the plane? How far it need to be kept away from the gas line?  Any insulation needed?

Thanks!

[Waiter]

I need to relocate it because I now have other components in the nose,and there is no longer any room for the heater.

The way I mounted the Strong Pitch actuator leave little clearance for the heater.

Also, I place the hydraulic pump for the landing gear above the nose tire.  By placing the heavy pump as far forward as I could get it, this should offset any W&B issues associated with lighter instrument panel and a heavier landing gear

[strake99]

I may have missed something...but I think that you can build a safe oil cooler/heater installation in the nose of the plane without spending the money and gaining the weight of an additional oil pump (which, if it is feeding oil from the sump, which is at low pressure, needs to be able to pump cold oil, in order to be able to move cold oil through the system and replace it with hot oil).
You install a one-way valve on the return oil line at the point where it feeds back into the engine. You also install a cable-operated on-off valve in the oil line that feeds from the engine, again in the engine cpmpartment close to the engine feed take-off for the oil.
If you suspect an oil leak in the heater/cooler circuit in flight, you pull the shut-off cable, and the entire nose oil circuit is isolated from the engine, preventing any further loss of oil. You will lose your cabin heat, but a controlled cold descent with an engine is bettter than a controlled cold descent with no engine...
Bear in mind that you will have up to 1 quart of oil in the nose circuit that cannot be drained at each oil change, unless you devise a special arrangement to bleed that oil using a drain fitting or valve in the nose area at the lowest point in the nose circuit. If you are using a high-pressure feed from the engine oil gallery, that may be more difficult to engineer than a circuit using low-pressure oil from the sump. Depending on where your engine compartment oil cooler is currently mounted, this may or may not be a negative operating factor. In my case, the current oil cooler is mounted at the top of the firewall, and cannot be drained at a normal oil change unless you remove the cooler from its mounting, disconnect it from the circuit and drain it separately. So, with my current configuration, moving the cooler to the nose does not make the oil retention problem much worse. (I plan to remove the engine compartment oil cooler and replace it with a Setrab cooler in the nose, since I currently do not have an oil cooling problem in the engine - I have to blank off the cooler in the winter to get the temperature up to 180 degrees).

[Charles Davis]

Consider constructing an insulated heat exchanger in the hell hole.  Use a marine bilge pump blower to force the air through the oil cooler and into the nose via scat tubing.  


This should save some weight, saves having to run oil lines all the way to the nose, and saves having "old" oil in the lines after changing your oil.

[Tom]

Does anyone know where I can get the oil cooler "adapter plate" for an O-200??


I'd like to add an oil heater to my bird and this seems like the only way to remove hot oil from the engine using the KISS method!


Tom