Any harm in leaving the oil filter off and oil draining for a few days?

I'd spin the old filter back on if you're worried about it. I've seen a 470 lunched by ingestion of forgotten shop rag. The resultant emergency landing was made to a FSDO airport, which doubled the excitement for all involved.

Like alligators just waiting with open mouths for the bird to walk across their tongue. :D
 
My 0-470 dipsticks have always been wrong. Easy solution. At oil change add the minimum amount of oil you’re comfortable with. For me that’s 8 qts. Run the engine to fill the filter, stop it, and let the oil settle. Scribe a mark for 8 qts. Add two quarts, let settle, scribe a 10 qt line. Add 2 more, scribe a max fill line. Mine are a full 2 qts different from the factory marks. On the other hand, my Lycoming’s dipstick reads correctly even with an aftermarket cold air sump. But I verified it the same way.
My IO-520 dipstick was "wrong" too until I found that the tube it slips in was not seated all the way into its socket. That tube can hang easily up on the edge of the socket it goes into. Make SURE it's all the way in and report back.
 
If a fly crawls into the filter threads, it could conceivably block oil flow into the small holes in the crankshaft, for instance. Knockaknock-boom. There is no filtration of any sort after that point. Oil goes into the peripheral holes in the filter, through the media, and out the middle. There's something about oil and gasoline that attracts bugs. Paint, too.

I won't leave magneto or other accessory openings open, either. People have had "little" accidents with loose hardware falling off some spot and bouncing its way into such places, and if it falls into the gearing it gets real bad real quick. Magneto retention clamps and nuts sitting on the area in front of the windshield, for instance. If you have to remove the accessory cover and maybe the sump to find something like that, you never leave anything open again.

Absolutely not.

If the filter is clogged, the pump keeps pumping raising the pressure. The first line of defense is the oil filter bypass valve that will lift allowing oil to flow.

The second line is the oil pump oressure relief valve lifting. This can happen at any time the oil pressure is above the relief spring tension.

I can't believe people think like this.
 
Absolutely not.

If the filter is clogged, the pump keeps pumping raising the pressure. The first line of defense is the oil filter bypass valve that will lift allowing oil to flow.

The second line is the oil pump oressure relief valve lifting. This can happen at any time the oil pressure is above the relief spring tension.

I can't believe people think like this.
For Pete's sake. Read my post again. If a bug gets into the oil inlet port of the engine, the center point of the oil filter, it gets pushed into the galleries and can end up in crankshaft galleries that are easily occluded by small things like bugs. There are tiny oil passages in con rods, too, to squirt oil under the piston head and to lube the wrist pin bearing in some engines. Lifter bodies have tiny oil inlet holes, and through them the rockers and valves are lubed. Any of these can be blocked. The relief valve, in an aircraft engine, is not always in the pump. It is often at the end of the entire oil system and dumps the remaining oil to control pressure. Even there, debris can get lodged under the valve and ends up lowering oil pressure at lower RPM. Besides all that, the relief valve in the engine OR the filter has nothing to do with bugs or other stuff getting into the system and clogging small passages. Nothing.



For the fifth time, what are your aviation maintenance qualifications and experience?


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For Pete's sake. Read my post again.
No use buddy. He can't read and proves that with each post. Plus me and you are mere mx hacks in his world who got our certificates out of a box of Frosted Flakes. Personally, I think he's stuck in a basement somewhere in the PNW playing Flight Simulator 98. But at least it makes the day go by faster....:rolleyes:
 
Yes, I finished the oil change week before last and test flew it as per usual. No, leaving it draining and the filter adapter uncovered for a few days didn't seem to matter aside from the usual benefits of running W80 instead of W100 in the near zero F temps. Sure, probably not the best maintenance practice from a human factors standpoint, but I'll stock up on filters next time so I don't have to worry about it. Interestingly the filter adapter was still dribbling out just a little bit of oil 48 hours later, which seems a little odd since it's near the top of the engine.

Dipstick still reads 10 after servicing with 8 quarts. It'll even read 12 if you lower the tail on a slope. If I service with 9 or 10 quarts the belly gets very dirty very fast, and 8 quarts is still within the acceptable oil level range. I carry a few extra quarts in baggage and don't sweat it. It's a 62 year old airplane and engine, this is probably the least of its problems.

Sorry if this thread bothered anyone, just an idiot here trying to learn from the pros!
 
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Interestingly the filter adapter was still dribbling out just a little bit of oil 48 hours later, which seems a little odd since it's near the top of the engine.
That's the oil draining out of the galleries that feed the bearings, lifters and so on. With the filter in place and full of oil, the oil pump upstream of the filter prevents much of that.
 
I Never use cloth rags around motors especially red shop rags.

lint free paper towels only around motors has been my practice. fwiw
I once saw a lint free towel get into an F/A-18 engine, twist itself into a mini rope and cause a ton of damage to the engine. The maintainers were floored as the paper towel could easily be torn by itself, but once it twisted itself into a rope it was stronger than anything they expected.
 
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