Which always leads me to this same question: Does anyone here have a
"pre-oiler" installed in their airplane?


-------------------------------

Old news, guys. Pre-lubers are pretty common. Do a Google on
'pre-luber,' see what you get. I posted the following a couple of
years ago.

"Wanna see your engine last virtually forever? Add a pre-luber. Go
on. No big
deal. See that screw-top aerosol canister from Harbor Freight? Buy
one. Make
a mount for it. (Upside down, please). Now pull the Schrader valve
and
replace it with a 12vdc continuous-duty solenoid valve. You may use a
fuel
tank purge valve from the junk yard, if you wish. But the real thing
-- about
$40 -- will work better. Now wire the solenoid valve into the
ignition
circuit. (Circuit ON, valve OPEN) Then plumb the thing to your main
oil
gallery.

Now when you turn on the key about a pint of PRESSURIZED oil will be
delivered
to the engine BEFORE anything starts rotating. After the engine
begins to run
it will pump that amount of oil back into the pre-luber... and will
trap it
there, under pressure, when the key is turned off. (You may elaborate
upon
this scheme if you wish but the Plain Vanilla version will work just
fine for
an engine as small as a Volkswagen.)"

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Veedubs are small engines, only run a couple quarts in the sump, have
oil galleries with a fairly low internal volume so you can get by with
a small pre-luber. If you don't have an electrical system, a manual
valve works fine. If the reservoir is the one mentioned (HF aluminum
canister thingee) the whole shebang weighs just over a pound, not
count counting the oil.

-R.S.Hoover