As I have to attend to a detached liner in my petrol tank I thought I had better check and clean my oiling system while I am at it. My late Shipley model has been converted to run gravity drippers but there is no visual indication of flow which has always worried me slightly. However, there is nothing much wrong as its always smoked well when opened up leaving town and the crankcase wells have always been nicely full of oil when I have checked.
The system I have is a simple gravity system with vents in the line below the adjusters. I rigged up a temporary tank and measured a flow of 22 ml on one side and 24 ml on the other side over the course of an hour. I appreciate that the flow will vary with temperature, the header height of oil above the drippers and the viscosity of oil but a rate of 46 ml per hour will do for some back of the envelope calculations. If I assume an average speed of 30 mph and a fuel economy of 50 mpg (I have never measured this) then in an hour it will use 0.6 gallons. That equates to 2.7 L and a calculated petrol:oil ratio of 58:1. That seems a bit lean to me so feedback would be appreciated on what I should aim for.
Thanks!
Keith
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