The International Cessna 170 Association

Hello,
Winter has arrived in central oregon and I'm concerned my oil temp is not rising high enough to boil off extra water. I've got 2 different sized plates to cover the front of the oil cooler with - used the first plate today that covers about 1/2 and the oil temp never really climbed above 160.
I haven't tried the other cover (covers about 7/8's of the rostral end of the oil cooler) but was curious what the thoughts were regarding the covers, temps and other tricks to keep engine temps up.

These covers screw directly onto the face of the cooler on the front side - not to the front of the cowl on the nose.


Thanks for the help,
Gordon
52 170B with 0-360 lycoming and cs prop

The Lycomings I've been familiar with measured their oil temps at the oil cooler exit...not at the sump....and they have a verniatherm which acts as a thermostat.

In other words, (and this is by no means authoritative) I believe your low oil temp indication is no reason to fear that your oil is running so cool as to not get rid of any water in the normal way. Your oil is undoubtedly hot enough to rid itself of normal water accumulations during winter operations before it gets to the cooler ...and I believe it's temperature indications collected at the point where it exits the cooler is unimportant in that regard. (Not sure what you mean by "extra" water.)

The oil temp is measured in the oil screen housing on the accessory case on a Lycoming. Use some self adhesive foil tape to adjust how much you want covered to get the temp up to around 180-190. The veratherms are a neat idea but it has been my experience that they have little effect on bringing the oil temp up where it needs to be. I have had the same problem with Continentals version of the Vernatherm.
Shawn

Thanks for correcting me Shawn... ( brain flatulence I guess, ...thinking of the oil temp spec. derivation maybe... hopefully I'll get better after the site shutdn mx.)

I blocked off 1/2 of the inlet ( 4"scat tube) and it appeared to do nothing, my temps (EI gauge) run around 170. I'm wondering whether the temp measured at the screen housing is lower than sump temperature due to oil returning from the cooler. I should know this but I can't find my lycoming books to look at the oil flow.