oil system accumulator

John Galbreath Jr. · Jul 26, 2014

whiskeymakin said:
What about a failure on the "normally closed solenoid" would you be running no psi, possibly causing damage if you dont notice it soon enough. Or is it a fail open deal?

Or fuse it along with the ignition to shut down the motor if there was a power loss

No, I should be the same as if your did not have the accumulator. You would not benefit from the extra oil in a turn over.

Guess if it failed immediately on start up, but before the accumulator piston sucked back, then you could be running the engine over full on oil.

I have a manual petcock on mine, so I have to start engine, then close petcock, then turn off engine, to get a good oil level reading.

patooyee · Jul 26, 2014

I misunderstood the question. John is right. If the valve failed it would be like running without the accumulator. The only time is would affect you would be when you lost sump in the pan and the accumulator wouldn't be able to do its job.

hokie_yj · Jul 26, 2014

patooyee said:
I misunderstood the question. John is right. If the valve failed it would be like running without the accumulator. The only time is would affect you would be when you lost sump in the pan and the accumulator wouldn't be able to do its job.

Yeah, this. ^ The motor will still be fine unless you're in a spot that the pickup in the pan is uncovered. I went with a trap-door baffled pan so really the accumulator is just an insurance policy.

I was going to go the manual valve route, but where I had to put the accumulator there would be no way to reach it.

I will say that I'm not very worried about the solenoid valve failing though. I work in control systems maintenance in a chemical plant, and we have hundreds of thousands of theses type solenoids operating pneumatic block valves and also as ESD devices on pneumatic control valves. Failure is very rare on them, and even then it's usually a wiring issue. On very rare occasions we'll find a coil burnt up.

Bebop · Jul 27, 2014

I have seen somewhere on pirate that Woodley puts accumulators without any solenoid or manual valve on his builds.
Just hooked to the block and that's it.

I might be wrong though...

hokie_yj · Jul 27, 2014

A lot of people do it that way. The valve is not necessecary, it's just there for the pre-lube function only.

John Galbreath Jr. · Jul 27, 2014

Bebop said:
I have seen somewhere on pirate that Woodley puts accumulators without any solenoid or manual valve on his builds.
Just hooked to the block and that's it.

I might be wrong though...

Adam put a manual cutoff on the 38. There would be no way to check the oil without one.