The low oil level sensor offered at
http://www.aircraftextras.com/LowOilSensor.htm
is a float that acts as a magnetic switch.  In order for the sensor to
think that your pan was full of oil, there would have to be a pool of
oil in the pan (or surrounding the sensor) deep enough to lift the float
to the top of its stem.  A dribble of oil would not serve to make the
device think that you had a full pan.

If you wanted to adapt this device for use in a 13B and were concerned
about whether you had enough clearance from the bottom of the pan to the
motor mount (and you did not want to remove the oil pan to find out or
to create clearance by drilling extra holes in your engine mount), you
could mount the sensor externally, as follows:

Take the drain plug, drill a hole through the center of it, weld a
fitting to the hole in the drain plug (AN-4 or -6), and run a hose from
the fitting to another similar fitting welded onto the side of a
vertical aluminum square tube (big enough to weld a 1/2 inch NPT fitting
in the bottom - to accept the oil level sensor).  This hose fitting on
the vertical tube should be at or below the bottom of the oil pan.  At
the top of the vertical tube is another AN-4 or -6 hose fitting, from
which a hose can be run to the oil vent at the top of the engine.  The
level of the oil in the vertical tube will always be the same as the
level of the oil in the pan, since liquids seek their own level, and
your sensor will be able to measure the engine oil level, without your
having to invade the oil pan or the engine mount.  Additionally, you can
remove the entire device and put an un-modified drain plug back in the
pan if you ever decide that you do not want or need the sensor.

You can test the sensor by slowly adding oil (to a stopped engine)
wise empty of oil. When the light goes out, that is the amount of
oil that will be in your engine when the warning light first comes on.
The engine does not have to be running out of oil to conduct the test.
You may have to adjust your calculation by the additional amount of oil
that would be circulating in the engine when it is running.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On
Behalf Of Joe Hull
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 3:53 PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [Potential Spam Identified by FDIC]::[FlyRotary] Re: Oil level
sensor

> Here is a company that makes an oil level sensor that can be used
> both
> on Lycoming engines and Mazda Rotary engines (with a little
> adaptation
> of the oil pan).  It can trigger a signal much sooner than the
> sensor
> that is built into the 13B engine.
> > http://www.aircraftextras.com/LowOilSensor.htm

That item really looks like it would do the job. But, a couple of
questions only one of which I can answer without a probe to test with:
1. is there 3.5 inches of space between the fill plug and the
"sandwich plate" that is part of the Conversion Concepts motor mount.

2. I'm not sure where the oil drains back into the pan in relation to
the fill plug with the adapter plate in place. I'm not going to drop
my pan to figure that out right now. But my concern is that if a
trickle of oil - say the last quart in the engine happens to come out
of the oil gallery and dribble on the probe - then it will think there
is a full pan.

Other than those questions - it really looks like a good product. Oh,
and even if I had a probe - I'm not sure I'd want to test it on my
engine. In order to really find out if it works on a running engine
that is losing oil you'd have to run it out of oil and if it didn't
light up as advertised...well bad things happen.

Joe Hull
Redmond (Seattle), Washington
Cozy MkIV #991 (working on Engine & Electrical & Finishing)
http://www.maddyhome.com/canardpages/pages/JoeHull/index.html
 


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