Remote oil thermostat

[jiott]

Here are some photos.

[Meyertheflyer]

Those are very helpful. Thanks Jim

[cubtractor]

I had read some information on oil temperatures some years ago but it was along the lines of the link listed below.

http://www.reiffpreheat.com/Article-Visser3.htm

[Paul Z]

From the bottom

[Paul Z]

From the co pilots side, towards the firewall

[Meyertheflyer]

Thanks, I'll use these photos to help install. I was flying my Kitfox at 14000 feet and the oil temp was only at 138 degrees. This should solve that issue.

[mr bill]

I vibration isolated mine on top of the engine. The instructions were very clear not to hard mount the oil thermostat.

[HighWing]

I haven't been following this thread for reasons that will be forthcoming, but being away from projects and with time on my hands as I visit 3000 miles from home, I started reading and thought I might share some thoughts. I guess it was likely in 1994 or 5 that I went to the factory fl-in to see what folks were doing and take some pictures to help me on my new project. One of the things that struck me was the number of guys with the factory oil cooler had most of the face blocked off with tape. And this was in August where bitter cold was not a factor in too cool oil. The first thing I decided to do was use the smaller oil cooler available from Earls. The factory cooler was the wide one - about 8 inches wide between inlet and outlet ports. The narrow one was about 5 inches. I also started working on shutters that could be controlled from the cockpit. That setup is what I started flying with from day one.

As was mentioned, the need of an oil cooler is marginal in most US climates. I generally flew with the shutters closed. I would occasionally open them on long climbs as necessary. I was aware when the thermostats became available but in the beginning they seemed a bit cumbersome and the multiple lines discouraged me and most of those I flew with that I trusted for advice. To this day, I like the simplicity of the small cooler and the shutters. I was reluctant to discuss the shutters as at the time we had a business and were not advertisers on this forum and in the spirit of fair play we tried to adhere to the forum rules regarding promoting stuff not found on the left edges of forum pages. We have shut down our business so free to talk, I guess.

Some comments on before or after the oil pump. I suspect the factory recommendation of the cooler before the pump is simply that is where it fits given the design of the engine. Whether the designers even considered the possible need of an oil cooler - who knows for sure, but it is what it is. With that in mind, I strongly believe that with the several email lists in the old days and this forum, alongside the very active service letter efforts both from all versions of the Kitfox kit manufacturers and Rotax, if there was an issue with sucking air from the inlet mounted oil cooler we would have heard of it at least once. Someone mentioned over thinking this issue. I am pretty much convinced this is the case. When our group of six to eight were flying together 40 to 50 hours a year, we saw a lot, talked a lot and interacted a lot with other Kitfox guys and nothing on this ever came up. The one and only issue we ever had on one of our back country sojourns was an ignition module failure and that was repaired in the field with a butane soldering iron someone brought along, but that is another story. I'm sometimes a bit concerned about all the bells and whistles literally. We automate and then rely on flashing lights and chirpy alarms to get our heads up rather than doing the old fashioned instrument scans. A recent accident report in Sport Pilot tends to bear this out

[AVDOC]

Thought I would add some pictures of the oil thermostat that I installed on my Model 4 Speedster. It is the newer thermostat that Rotax appears to bless. I purchased it from spruce

It was a little easier to plumb, and is a little smaller than the other stats.

Also have the oil shutter's installed just in case it's needed

[jrevens]

A question for the group - I have one of the common silver-colored aluminum oil thermostatic valves, as shown in a lot of pictures in this thread. I'm getting ready for my first engine run, preceded by the oil-purge procedure specified by Rotax of course. It seems as though with that valve in the circuit the oil cooler will probably not be filled with oil during the purge. Is this a worry that I should be thinking about, and has anyone attempted to fill the cooler with oil before that first start?