[T3] 73 T-3 oil temp?
Keith Park
topnotch at nycap.rr.com
Mon Sep 6 17:12:28 PDT 2021
Well if it doesn’t rumble when you start it up I wouldn’t worry about it, I heard the occasional slight bearing noise on startup on my last engine for maybe
The last 40K miles I put on it, oil pressure got lower with age but in the end it died of a weak cylinder compression.
Parts were better in the 90's but they were starting to go down hill. EVERYTHING needs to be checked on assembly, otherwise it’s a crap shoot...
Never know what you have. Believe me, I learned the hard way!
Keith'
Topnotch Restorations
topnotch at nycap.rr.com
http://www.topnotchresto.com
71 Squareback “Hothe”
65 Notchback “El Baja Rojo”
93 RX7 “Redstur”
13 Subaru Outback "Blendin"
-----Original Message-----
From: type3-vwtype3.org <type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org> On Behalf Of William Jahn
Sent: Monday, September 6, 2021 1:55 PM
To: type3 at vwtype3.org
Subject: Re: [T3] 73 T-3 oil temp?
No. When I rebuilt the engine in the car now I used a 72 case I had . Long story short the engine that came in this car after driving it for 7 years one day on start up it developed a loud internal rattle , it still ran well. I took the 72 engine apart and brought the case to work at Ford when I was a tech they had a machine they used to clean auto transmissions in. I had standard size bearings that still looked pretty good . I bought new german bearings and lifters, checked the crank and cam journals and had the heads done with new guides and whatever was needed bought new cylinder kits
flushed out the oil cooler. It took three months to afford all the new
parts and also a new oil pump. I built the case first then once I got the cylinder kits and heads done. Put it all together. All the parts were German.
I didn't know about installing bearings in the case and checking. All I knew about in 1997 was reground cranks and oversized bearings and line boring.
It's a mystery to me why the oil temps rose all of a sudden . It still has good oil pressure , I've driven it in temps like this before and it never gets more than 185F yet I never was stuck in traffic on such a hot day for so long. I don't hear any noises like bearings or rod knock. It sounds the same as it did before all of this and runs the same. I don't do much driving , at most 350 miles a year since 2007.
I understand how an engine heats up more under a load than it will at idle . The odd part is once I got moving again under load it cooled down pretty fast. All this tells me is the engine fan was moving much more air. I searched all over the internet trying to find anything related. All I found were mostly beetle and van related issues on blocked air intakes and non working air flaps. I also saw the temp charts you posted. I'm in no position to do another rebuild and this car is my only mode of transport.
All I can do at this point is check a few things , change the oil and see what happens. I did find a lot of water cooled and air cooled engines running hotter at idle standing in traffic. The air cooled were all motorcycles. On a type 3 the only cooling is the fan and oil cooler and the cooler also requires air flow to do its job. With the high ambient temps sitting in traffic at idle to me seems worse than under a normal load simply because the fan is barely moving any air.And the heat generated not only by the other cars added to the high ambient add in the black top pavement heat rising right up to the engine just sitting there absorbing it all.
I never took the old case apart to see what the noise was. I thought it might be the cooling fan so over the weekend I removed the fan and it was loose and got a good one that didn't change a thing. In 91 drove to Vegas it was 118 there and on the highway the oil temps hit over 260 F. I got home and noticed the valve cover gaskets were leaking yet it went another 6 years before it started the noise and I never knew how many miles were on that engine. Whoever owned it didn't take good care of it. The oil strainer was clogged and the oil was like mud . I had the entire upper and lower tin off, flushed the engine out with mineral spirits to get what I could out and to get it running well it needed all new fuel lines and vacuum lines.
On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 9:04 AM Keith Park <topnotch at nycap.rr.com> wrote:
> At idle, your not producing any HP, so you have little heat load,
> engine is hottest producing HP and then fan speed RPM makes a difference.
> My oil temp gauge was calibrated using a thermocouple I installed in
> the case when I rebuilt it, off the shelf thermometers can really be
> thrown in the Trash in many cases.
>
> Never looked at temp on the sump gauges because where I drive, that
> sensor would probably be ripped apart in short order under there,
> especially with a sump Added.
> 40wt is pretty thick, if your seeing an oil light at idle your
> bearings are worn or loose, were they fitted to the case when you
> built it? Was the case checked for closure around The bearings fully
> torqued? As ive learned as well, bearings these days are crap and you
> may have to mix and match to get good clearances... and you need a
> bore gauge to do that, Unfortunately its no longer plug and play.
>
> Keith'
>
>
> Topnotch Restorations
> topnotch at nycap.rr.com
> http://www.topnotchresto.com
> 71 Squareback Hothe
> 65 Notchback El Baja Rojo
> 93 RX7 Redstur
> 13 Subaru Outback "Blendin"
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: type3-vwtype3.org <type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org>
> On Behalf Of William Jahn
> Sent: Sunday, September 5, 2021 10:53 PM
> To: type3 at vwtype3.org
> Subject: Re: [T3] 73 T-3 oil temp?
>
> I've been using SAE 40 Valvoline since it gets pretty hot here. I have
> the VDO temp sensor in the sump plate in place of the drain plug .
> I've read from a few places that installing one in the pressure relief
> port does a better job . The tests were done with a candy thermometer
> down the oil filler pipe and they read the same. I still realize these
> gauges and senders are not real accurate. The engine does not have
> more than 45k miles on it since I rebuilt it.
>
> The only thing that makes sense to me is to be idle on a really hot
> day for a good hour. The cooling fan is not moving enough air simply
> because once the rpm's were up it cooled down pretty fast.
>
> I've never had that happen before. Drove it today and it was still
> pretty hot 91F. When I started it the oil pressure was 50 PSI. I drove
> a 1/2 mile and by that time the oil temp was just maybe 130F and the
> pressure was 40 PSI . When the temp is at 180F the gauge will read 15
> to 20 PSI at idle. I drove to Costco 6 miles one way and the oil temp
> was a bit above 180F then on the way back there was a parade I didn't
> know about and just to get back to a highway I could get home on
> traffic was so backed up most of the time was spent sitting at idle
> and with two lanes of cars side by side bumper to bumper I'm sure the
> air temp was a good deal hotter than 94F in fact by that time once I got home it was 97F.
>
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2021 at 7:23 PM Keith Park <topnotch at nycap.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > Quite a few varibles, what is your oil viscosity? Oil light with
> > 10W30 is not as bad as with 25W50, Still, its an indication of a
> > worn engine, but not necessarily worn out.
> > The sender is also part of the equation, the good german ones come
> > on at 5PSI, The cheap ones don t come on till there is virtually no
> > pressure.
> >
> > When the engine was new, the idle with 30wt on a hot day at about 12psi.
> >
> > 180 oil temp is cool
> > 220 is starting to get warm
> > 230 its getting warmer
> > 240 its time to back off a bit, that s hot, although it will
> > tolerate that for some time with good oil, but these are OIL temps,
> > not the temp of the block, or the cooler, which is what you get with
> > a sender screwed into anything.. its heat sunk on the block And is
> > 20-30 degree's cooler than the actual oil around it.
> >
> > Keith
> >
> >
> > Topnotch Restorations
> > topnotch at nycap.rr.com
> > http://www.topnotchresto.com
> > 71 Squareback Hothe
> > 65 Notchback El Baja Rojo
> > 93 RX7 Redstur
> > 13 Subaru Outback "Blendin"
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: type3-vwtype3.org
> > <type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org>
> > On Behalf Of William Jahn
> > Sent: Sunday, September 5, 2021 12:52 PM
> > To: type3 at vwtype3.org
> > Subject: [T3] 73 T-3 oil temp?
> >
> > I just have VDO gauges oil pressure and oil temp. I know they are
> > not dead accurate . Yesterday I got stuck in traffic because of a parade .
> > The oil temps driving to my destination never got over 180F . Yet on
> > the way back I was stuck in traffic barely moving for over an hour
> > and the oil temp read just under 220 F the oil light would go on at
> > idle ,
> it was 94 F air temp .
> > If I put the auto trans in neutral the oil light would go out . I
> > checked the oil level later and was down 1/2 quart . Once I was able
> > to start moving the oil temps dropped .
> >
> > My question is since at idle the cooling fan is not moving much air
> > plus the 94 F was probably higher because of all the traffic other
> > cars generate heat.
> >
> > I've never had this happen before being stuck just the engine
> > idling for so long. I've had this oil light on after a freeway run
> > on a hot day came to a stop the oil light would be on then as soon
> > as I hit the throttle it went out.
> >
> > Is it just that the cooling fan at idle is running slow the reason
> > the oil temp would climb? Because the temps did drop back down to
> > about 190F once I was moving yet I didn't get to drive far enough
> > to cool it back down to
> > 180 F where it normally is. I would also place it neutral when this
> > happened to get not only the voltage to stay up it's 1,000 RPM in
> > neutral and 850 RPM in drive plus hoping the extra RPM would help
> > bring the temps down. It didn't, I had to be moving at least 35 MPH
> > and kept it in 2nd gear so the RPM's were about 2400 RPM.
> >
> > William
> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was
> > scrubbed...
> > URL:
> > <
> > http://lists.vwtype3.org/pipermail/type3-vwtype3.org/attachments/202
> > 10
> > 905/5
> > 5c945f2/attachment.html
> > <http://lists.vwtype3.org/pipermail/type3-vwtype3.org/attachments/20
> > 21
> > 0905/55c945f2/attachment.html>
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org To unsubscribe or
> > change subscription options, visit:
> > http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> > If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org To unsubscribe or
> > change subscription options, visit:
> > http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> > If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
> >
> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was
> scrubbed...
> URL: <
> http://lists.vwtype3.org/pipermail/type3-vwtype3.org/attachments/20210
> 905/02925d46/attachment.html
> >
> _______________________________________________
> VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org To unsubscribe or change
> subscription options, visit:
> http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org To unsubscribe or change
> subscription options, visit:
> http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.vwtype3.org/pipermail/type3-vwtype3.org/attachments/20210906/20b19475/attachment.html>
_______________________________________________
VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options, visit:
http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
More information about the type3-vwtype3.org
mailing list