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Tommy: Your reply got me thinking and I think I have the answer to this mystery. When the oil gets hot, I imagine it expands its volume a certain percentage. When you shut down, the hot oil is occupying a greater volume of the oil tank and rises up to a higher level on the dipstick. As it cools, the volume lessens but the oil - due to good adhesive properties (Aeroshell) - sticks on the dipstick at the higher level. So the first pull on the cold morning indicates the higher level from the previous flight, you wipe it off, reinsert and voila, you get the lower level on the dipstick. Makes sense to me, but I wonder if the oil indeed expands to such an extent. Tim -----Original Message----- From: JThomas Terry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 9:16 PM To: Tim and Martha Briggs Subject: RE: [COUPERS-FLYIN] Dirty Belly - Oil level mystery Tim, For years I have been of the school of thought that the stick would be showing correct level on a cold engine, hence no need to pull, wipe, re-insert. Just last week I was doing a pre-flight on a friends plane and did my normal, just pull the sick. My friend saw this and said that the reading was incorrect. I insisted that it had to be correct because the engine had not been run in a couple of days and that logically it would show the true oil level. He told me to wipe the stick and put it back in and that it would show almost 1 qt. less. He was right. He also told me that he had been taught the same lesson several years ago and actually had it proven at an oil change. Me, I don't know how the oil crawls up the stick, but apparently it does. Tommy N93929 -----Original Message----- From: Tim and Martha Briggs [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 4:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [COUPERS-FLYIN] Dirty Belly - Oil level mystery ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- Ercoupers: I have a question concerning the oil level in my O-200. The crankcase breather has a hose that carries blown oil down to the bottom of the engine compartment. I'm spewing a lot of oil into the nose bowl and out onto the belly. The max capacity is 6 quarts. After the plane has sat overnight, I pull out the dipstick without wiping and the oil level indicates a certain quantity - say 5 quarts. I wipe the dipstick clean and re-insert to its max depth, then pull it out again and it indicates at least a quart less. How is this possible? Today for example, the initial quantity (without wiping) indicated 5.5 quarts. I wiped clean and re-checked and it indicated 4 quarts. I added one quart and flew to Santa Monica (about a 1.4). Upon arrival, my nosewheel pant and nose bottom had a lot of oil on them. Same thing on the flight back. Any ideas as to what's going on here?? Which oil level would you believe? I'm now thinking the initial check is the correct one. Tim 1950 Ercoupe 415G ======================================================================== ====== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/ ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
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