OK, so you sold an OD due to an economics decision. I respect that.
You made a trade-off. Using an OD is a matter of trade-offs too. If my
car never got out of town I wouldn't think an OD desirable.
Your remark about having torque at highway speeds mystifies me. After
all, that's one reason why you can flip it into direct drive.
The business about 20% of wear being at highway speeds may be true.
I think it's based on some old, pre-freeway surveys which showed that
the "average" car spent 80% of it's driving time in town, though. I
don't know what more modern data shows. Living in a small town , as I
do, means that if I go more than 5 minutes in 3 of 4 directions, I'm on
the open road. When I lived in El Paso, I went most everywhere on the
freeways so I still used the OD a lot (read whenever I could).
That business about the auxiliary oil pump brings up an interesting
point. I installed spin-on filter adapter right after I acquired my
present B. I'm sure you know why. Someone (was it John Twist?)
suggested that if you had the cartridge filter and didn't want to
replace it with a spin-on, you should put an ignition kill-switch in the
car and not allow it to start until the oil pressure comes up whilst
cranking. I'm not sure about that one. Sounds like hell on the
starter. More trade-offs.
But why throw that in anyway? We were talking about whether an OD can
decrease engine wear in comparison to non-OD. Wear on start-up is a
fact of life with or without OD and is not germane to the issue.
Actually, I'd install an OD for several reasons; fuel economy, reduced
engine wear and lower pollution output due to less fuel burned, are
major factors.
--
Charley Robinson
Kerrville, TX, USA
NAMGBR 8-3530
`69 B Roadster
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