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Old 05-29-2009, 10:02 AM
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sastanley sastanley is offline
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Thumbs up ha, nice!

Ha ha..thanks, Bill!

You'll see why I was interested in this poll. I picked 20 psi, but it is often under that. I believe that I am fortunate not to have any of those fancy oil pressure dependent cut-off switches, or the thing would never run!

The oil pressure behavior is still somewhat of a mystery to me on my boat. When I first acquired her it seemed as long as the pressure gauge was above 'zero' I was supposed to be happy (this apparently was typical behavior reported by P.O. & I do not think he ever adjusted the pressure adjusting bolt) This was unsatisfactory to me, so before hauling, I turned it in one turn and saw a slight improvement, if I recall the ride to the travel lift it was 10-ish PSI. Over the winter I got another turn or so out of it, hoping for more PSI this spring.

I think I have just about run out of adjustment, after 2 or 2.5 turns in total (I got .5 more turns a few weeks ago and they seem to only turn together now, so I assume I've bottomed out on the adjustment.)

So, here is the current behavior. I always make my wife sit in the cockpit on the stbd side so her legs aren't blocking the gauge pod and I can see the gauges on the port side. I stare at them every couple of minutes! I am a gauge freak...
  • Cold - first 5 seconds of running - 40 PSI - I've never seen it this high, except right at start up.
  • After those 5 seconds of running it initially drops to 8-10 PSI
  • Warming up - 10-15 PSI (15 at idle, goes down to 10 in gear)
  • After extended running & warm up (30-45 minutes), it has been settling in around 20-25 PSI. I did see 35 one day at light cruise (1,400 RPM), but only once!

Type of oil is Mobil1 10w40, high mileage synthetic. This was the oil installed by the P.O., so for the over-the-winter change, I kept the same stuff. Now that I am getting the engine running a little better, I am probably going to experiment and go back to regular old SAE 30 and see how it does, unless you guys talk me out of it.
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-Shawn
"Holiday" - '89 Alura 35 #109
"Twice Around" - '77 C-30, #511 with original A-4 & MMI manifold - SOLD! (no longer a two boat owner!!)
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Last edited by sastanley; 05-29-2009 at 02:48 PM. Reason: as usual, more babbling
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