OK scroungers, I need your help.

[troy]

I like my car.  It's a '99 Subaru Outback all-wheel drive wagon.  More to the point, I'm frugal.  Or maybe you would call it cheap.  Or maybe you would call it demonstrating good stewardship of my resources.

In any case, I'll be dissapointed if I don't get at least 200,000 miles out of my car before the engine shows serious wear and needs to be replaced.  Tribologists (engineers who specialize in studying the way things wear out) have noted that 1/4 to 1/2 of the wear on your engine occurs during colds starts when the engine has essentially no lubrication because there is no oil pressure.

To overcome this, I use synthetic oil and I built a pre-oiler.  It's basically a big piece of pipe that's tied into the oil galleries of my engine.  It has a volume of six quarts.  It's half full of oil and half pressurized air.  When I open a valve just prior to starting the car, the oil rushes in there and when I get 50 psi of oil pressure, I hit the key and start the car.  As the oil pump takes over, it pumps oil back into the pressure vessel through a check valve to refill it for next time.  Works beautifully except for one thing.  Just like an old fashioned pressure tank on a well pump, my pressure tank can get "waterlogged" and lose air pressure.  Oil-logged just doesn't sound the same.  So once a week, I have to drain it by opening the valve, close the valve and repressurize the tank.

After three years of this, I've decided that's way too much maintenance, so I'm building an electric pump to do the pressurizing without the need for a pressure tank.  And here's where I need your help.  I need 5/16ths ball bearings to build the check valves in the pump body and I don't want to buy a whole new bearing assembly just to disassemble it and rob two ball bearings out of it.  Where oh where could I scrounge these things?

This is silly in a sense.  My favorite bearing place will sell me 65 loose ones for less than eight bucks.  But what will I do with the leftover 63??? Build one for my wife's car too I suppose.  But what about the other 61?

I was hoping somebody out there would be struck by inspiration on where to find half a dozen nice used cheap/free 5/16ths ball bearings.

Thanks in advance and keep having fun.

troy

[Wolfles]

Try Ebay. I had a project requring bearing and got a box of loose ball bearing. It was a box of different sizes.

They where very reasonable. With what bearings I had left, I made some turntables for the pantry and still had bearings left over.

MyWattsWorth,

Les.......spell checker still broke

[troy]

Hey thanks Les,

Yeah, ebay just gets bigger and bigger.  Is there anything you can't buy on ebay???

Best regards,

troy

[Gordy]

Troy
   If you have a farm implement dealer near you , ask if you can look through their scrap metal barrel. Most have them out back for recycling. Maybe you can find some bearings that aren't rusted or worn to badly.
    although your pump idea sounds like it will work, wouldn't it be easier to fabricate and install a rubber blader in your reserve canister. The tough part might be finding oil proof rubber, I'm not sure inner tube rubber will work.
                 Just a tought,  Gordy

[Andrew]

Hi,

I have some old bearings from a ford pickup rive shaft, and also some heavy duty ones from an old broken industrial screen printer I dissasembled.

You want any?

-Andrew

[troy]

Thanks for the lovely offer, but I've decided it's ok to purchase new for once.  You don't have to scrounge everything, and I figured by the time I payed shipping to anybody, it would all work out about the same.

Thanks again,

troy

[troy]

I thought about the diaphragm thing for some time and decided it would make the project just too complex.  And inner tube material gets wierd with long term contact with oil.  

Besides, I have a strong little 12v motor with a nice step down gear that I recycled from a dead mini air compressor.  Make a little piston, drill and ream a little cylinder, punch out some leather "o-rings" to use for piston rings and wind a couple of compression springs to make the check valves.  Cost will be minimal and it's a good learning experience.

Best regards,

troy

[Brian]

Hey, I think it's great you make your own setup. I don't know if you're interested or not, but I use this product on my Ford and it works flawlessly. Check it out.....

http://www.autoenginelube.com/pages/903473/index.htm

My '92 Bronco with the 351W has nearly 200,000 miles on it now and it performs flawlessly. All I do is change the oil every 3k miles and do the usual maintenance such as changing the air filter, plugs, cap, rotor, etc. so I couldn't be happier. I can't say if it's because of this sytem or not, but it certainly couldn't have hurt!! Not bad for a Ford eh!!! ;-)

Good luck with your project! Brian

[BT Humble]

Mate, most people I've known with Subies get 320,000km out of them without going to such lengths[1].  Just the usual things like cleaning the radiator and replacing the alternator when they wear out at the 10-year mark. ;-)

Toyota Corollas are pretty good good too, I sold mine at 260,000km to buy a truck[2], my aunt was very disappointed when she "only" got 495,000km out of hers.

Incidentally, my truck is a 1989 2 litre Ford Econovan/Mazda E2000 with 380,000km on the clock.  Not too bad for a buzz box, hmm? ;-)

BTH


[1] Althought it *does* sound like fun! ;-)


[2] There was nothing wrong with it, but I needed a cargo vehicle.  

[troy]

Excellent comments and suggestions.  Yes, subi's have a reputation for being as durable as an anvil.  And my ultimate goal is 300,000 miles (I'll be sick of it by then and want a new Mini or something for my midlife crisis.).  But 200,000 miles seems reasonable and it is a fun project as well.  I find it interesting that this type of equipment is not standard from the manufacturer.  Of course it's not in their best interest to double the life of their engines, so I can't entirely blame them...

Best Regards,

troy

[Brian]

LOL, good point!!

Regarding your air compressor system you're trying to set up.....why not get rid of the air tank altogether? Use the engine's oil pump while it's running to charge the tank with oil under pressure at 30 psi or so depending on your oil pressure at idle. Just use an electronically actuated valve that you can open up while driving around to pressurize the tank. Before you shut the engine off, close the valve.

Then then next time you're going to go for a drive, just open up the valve before you start the engine and the oil under pressure will flow back into the engine and pressurize it. You'll probably have to run an extra quart or so to allow for the storage depending on the size of the tank you choose and it should take care of your problems.

Just an idea! Brian

[troy]

Actually, the engine's oil pump does replenish the pre-oiler tank.  I have a valve that I open manually, then start the engine and close the valve.  But there's a check valve that allows the now pressurized oil from the engine to refill the pre-oiler and repressurize the air.  The difficulty is that the oil absorbs the pressurized air in the tank over the span of a week or two, thus requiring a recharge from an air compressor.  Anyway, it'll be fun to build a pump from scratch, including winding the compression springs and building the integral check valves.

Best Regards,

troy

[troy]

Sorry I didn't make this part clear, the new pump is an oil pump, and I'm scrapping the original system entirely.  A fitting will take oil from the oil pan, run it through the electrically driven pump and into the oil galleries, so no worries about any compressed air at all.

Keep having fun out there!

troy

[Brian]

I gotcha. Good idea! Is the pump going to be low enough to get primed? I know oil has a lower specific gravity than water does, so that'll make the suction line tough to prime without gravity helping you out. That's the only problem I see with such a setup....

You can always keep your existing setup and install a tank with a bladder in it, like the pressure tank on a well. That would probably take care of the problem also!

Good luck!!

[troy]

This will be a positive displacement pump, so priming will not be an issue, unlike centrifugal type pumps.  It should be capable of drawing the oil up from 20 ft, but will only need to overcome ~1 foot rise to the pump body.

tr

[Brian]

Good deal. Hope it all works out!