Hi all,
One for those in the know - What's the optimum working tempreture for oil on a normal road car?
I ask as my BMW ( retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=72391&page=1 ) is now fitted with an oil temp gauge, however as per my thread, this gauge doesn't go above 75 degrees centigrade.
There is no oil cooler fitted to the car and as you can see the pressure is fine at 3.5+ bar when hot. In typical German straight 6 fashion the sump holds the contents of half the north sea field so there wouldn't be any need for a cooler anyway.
I did think oil needs to get up to at least around 90 degrees or more in order to start “working” (i.e. keeping the sludge away, properly preventing wear etc.) though, and I definiately thought the oil temp should get higher than the coolant? Hence why some engines had water to oil coolers – The water temp helps the oil warm quicker from cold, then the water temp keeps the oil temp down when hot.
Only thing is the oil temp gauge literally barely moves, plus it gets a lot hotter than the other two next to it, so I was wondering if there’s a fault on it.
Is my gauge faulty or perhaps it's just not suited to this application? Here's a pic of it (on the right) - It's working off a sensor that's plumbed in through the sump plug.
Another possibility is that the oil temp sensor doesn't go far enough into the sump to be properly immersed in oil, but I would have thought once it’s toucing the oil inside it doesn’t matter by how much….
Can anyone help?
One for those in the know - What's the optimum working tempreture for oil on a normal road car?
I ask as my BMW ( retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=72391&page=1 ) is now fitted with an oil temp gauge, however as per my thread, this gauge doesn't go above 75 degrees centigrade.
There is no oil cooler fitted to the car and as you can see the pressure is fine at 3.5+ bar when hot. In typical German straight 6 fashion the sump holds the contents of half the north sea field so there wouldn't be any need for a cooler anyway.
I did think oil needs to get up to at least around 90 degrees or more in order to start “working” (i.e. keeping the sludge away, properly preventing wear etc.) though, and I definiately thought the oil temp should get higher than the coolant? Hence why some engines had water to oil coolers – The water temp helps the oil warm quicker from cold, then the water temp keeps the oil temp down when hot.
Only thing is the oil temp gauge literally barely moves, plus it gets a lot hotter than the other two next to it, so I was wondering if there’s a fault on it.
Is my gauge faulty or perhaps it's just not suited to this application? Here's a pic of it (on the right) - It's working off a sensor that's plumbed in through the sump plug.
Another possibility is that the oil temp sensor doesn't go far enough into the sump to be properly immersed in oil, but I would have thought once it’s toucing the oil inside it doesn’t matter by how much….
Can anyone help?
