Hi Jabiru. A few days ago during flight I suddenly lost oil pressure. I was hesitating for a while to evaluate if it was an instrument error or the real thing, before I reduced the throttle and looked for place to land. Stopped the engine and landed safely. I removed the cowling and found an oil hose from the oil cooler back to the oil donut, had fallen off its fitting. Most of the oil naturally had left the engine and oil pressure was lost.
After refitting the oil hose, I refilled with oil and checked the engine could be turned by hand without any unusual to be noticed. Then started the engine and it was running well as before the incident. After warm-up and running at high rpm as well as WOT repeatedly, the engine was left to cool down for next morning. Next morning I checked the engine for oil level and started it. Warm-up and when ready checked at high rpm and WOT. Eventually after total close to 2x30 minutes ground run without anything to notice, I took off and flew the 15 minutes flight back to my home airfield.
I am not sure about exactly how long the engine ran without oil pressure before stopped. Could be 10-20 seconds. The engine sounds good and seems not to have been damaged. However, is there any advise from Jabiru advise on what to check after this incident?
By the way. It would have been much better to have the oil drain plug on the right hand side of the engine sump. On my FlySynthesis Storch HS aircraft, the bracket for the oil cooler is in the way when changing oil. I have to dismount the bracket with the cooler and pull the assembly a bit forward to make room for unscrewing the oil drain plug, and drain the oil into a pan. It is awkward and not good for the oil hoses either to be manipulated that way.
If the oil drain plug had been on the right hand side I would only need to partly disconnect and lower the oil cooler assembly on the right side to make room for draining the oil.
Hello Jabiru. Any comments to the incident?
Hello Olav,
Usually if with a loss of oil the first thing that happens is the pistons pickup in the barrels. To check for this have a look and see if there is any sign of heating at the base of the barrel on the top and bottom sides. For example a patch of discoloured or burnt paint.
Otherwise, it sounds like your engine is fine.
