The A2A Simulations Community

Hi everybody and first off all a happy new year to everyone!

A few days ago I noticed that after a complete overhaul in the maintenance hangar, my engine oil level will drop to 90% (18.9 /21.0 gals) either immediately or within a few seconds in the payload and fuel manager.
I have installed the military and the civilian Mustang along with accusim. Both versions show the described behavior.

To check out if a reinstall might help, I deleted all files in the following folders:

C:\Users\...\Documents\A2A
C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\SimObjects\WoP3_P51D*

Also I deleted the client.wyc files for both versions in the /FSX/A2A/P51*/Update folders.

Afterwards I reinstalled both versions and accusim in the following order:

wop3_p51
wop3_p51_civ
wop3_p51_accusim
A2A_Update_05_09_16

Nevertheless, the reinstall didn´t change the described phenomenon regarding the oil level...

To me it´s not such a big of an issue since it´s just one mouse click to bring the oil level back up to 100% again
and otherwise everything seems to run fine (at least I hope so). I´m just curious if there is anyone else out there observing the same thing or maybe it´s just my chief mechanic pulling a running gag on me ...


If you like see if the issue is reproducable on your installation, proceed as follows:

1. Set up a new flight and choose any A2A P-51 you like
2. Turn off the engine, open the payload and fuel manager (shift-4) and click on all boxes in the lower left corner under "FILL / CHARGE". Alle fluid levels are herby set to 100%.
3. Open the maintenance hangar (shift-7) and click on "complete overhaul" in the lower right corner. Close the maintenance hangar again.
4. Check out the payload anf fuel manager window (reopen it in case you closed it) and observe the engine oil level. In my case it jumps to 90% and the corresponding box turns red.


Regards and happy flying,

Kai

Silly question but,

Which version of accusim are you using? Is it the latest?

Wells wrote:Silly question but,

Which version of accusim are you using? Is it the latest?

Hello Wells, I think that question is not silly at all. When I ran A2A_Update_05_09_16 as the last step of the reinstall process, I got 2 messages saying that each Mustang variant was updated to version 2.19. Also, both aircraft.cfg files begin with the line

[accusim]
version = 2.18

Due to that, I assume that my accusim version is 2.19. As far as I know A2A_Update_05_09_16 is the latest update, therefore I also assume accusim version 2.19 is the latest.

Since I do a lot of assuming here, I don´t think you´re question is silly at all
Do you know a different way how to clearly identify the installed accusim version?

Anyway, thanks for your reply to my topic.

Regards,

Kai

Why do you assume that 90% is not the correct level?

Hi mallcot,

because all other fluids are set to 100% after complete overhaul and I´m quite sure that in the past (maybe one or two updates ago) the oil level was also reset to 100%.

What happens to the oil level of your P-51 when you do a complete overhaul? It would be really interesting if somebody else could check and report the behaviour on their installation in that regard.

Hello,

have you tried a new .dat file?

thanks,
Lewis

Hello Lewis,

I guess your´re relating to the P51Log.dat and P51civLog.dat files. I deleted them both, but my oil still goes to 90% after overhaul...

Regards,

Kai

How are you loading the flight, is it a saved flight or a new flight?

Also what is your default flight?

thanks,
Lewis

Hi.
After engine overhaul or oil change on ANY A2A aircraft , usually means the oil level is slightly below full , YOU need to check levels and top up as required ,nothing wrong as i can see.
regards alan.

The reason I made the point is because it is almost unheard of to brim-fill ANY combustion engine.

You fill to the top mark, which then leaves an air gap to allow for: Oil already distributed throughout the engine; pressure changes which might cause a change in apparent levels and in an aircraft or motorcycle; to allow for attitude changes or surge through acceleration or deceleration.

On the basis of those points, while I don't have the P-51 installed at the moment, I consider it HIGHLY unlikely one would EVER 100% fill an engine in an aerobatic aircraft...

You should refer to the manual as I rather think Alan is right in his assessment, but wrong in his conclusion that it needs topping off. That is only going to promote blowoff and and an oily mess,

Too much oil can actually be worse for an engine than too little. As oil is consumed anyway, and it will always outlast the fuel consumption in a healthy engine, you should top to 90% and no more.


Question for devs: Does too much oil affect the engine in an Accusimmed aircraft? We know that too little certainly does.

I guess you would add oil to the max mark after a rebuild and than after the first start up, it would need a bit more because of the oil trapped everywhere in the engine. When I was riding motorcycles there were always a quantity for oil change and another for rebuilds, maybe it's the same for a Merlin

Tomas Linnet wrote:I guess you would add oil to the max mark after a rebuild and than after the first start up, it would need a bit more because of the oil trapped everywhere in the engine. When I was riding motorcycles there were always a quantity for oil change and another for rebuilds, maybe it's the same for a Merlin

Not so. The only adjustment will be for oil change versus oil & filter change when you may need to allow for the volume IN the filter. The actual volume of oil circulating (or rather `static`) in a `resting` engine is minimal. Especially in a dry sump engine like a Merlin.

In any case the Merlin is NOT an `oil tight` engine in the sense of our motorcycles (assuming you aren't talking 2-strokes). 6-20 pints an hour is normal consumption for the Merlin so you would expect to check oil levels before every flight...

As long as the level is not below minimum, you fill to 90%, not 100. If the level was below minimum, or consumption far higher than expected, the engine will be stripped for inspection. It's a 37 gallon oil tank.

I see no benefit filling to 100% when, even on long-range flights, the consumption would still ensure plenty of oil left at the end - 20 pints is only 2-and-a-bit gallons.

But like I said, it's a developer question if pouring too much oil into an engine is simulated.

Lewis - A2A wrote:How are you loading the flight, is it a saved flight or a new flight?

Also what is your default flight?

thanks,
Lewis

Hello Lewis,

the flights I used for checking the oil & overhaul thing were new defined flights. I didn´t change the FSX default flight. When I open FSX, it starts in the free flight menu with the trike ultralight selected as aircraft and Friday Harbour as location.

Can you tell if the oil level should be at 100% after overhaul? In other word´s, is something wrong with my installation?

Regards,

Kai