DRY SUMP PAN

Dry Sump Pan and Oil Pickup Adaptor for a Ford Zetec Engine



Dry Sump Pan and Oil Pickup Adaptor for a Ford Zetec Engine

Introduction

Internal combustion engines with dry sump lubricating system are known in which a feed pump supplies lubricating oil from a lubricating oil tank disposed outside an engine body to all moving parts in the engine, and the oil which had dropped down into a crank chamber after circulating through the engine is immediately picked up from the crank chamber and sent back into the lubricating oil tank by means of a return pump.

One example of such engines is disclosed in Ford Zetec engine, which includes a generally L-shaped lubricating oil tank attached to one side of an engine body extending in the longitudinal direction of a crankshaft, and a single feed pump and two return pumps all driven by rotation of the crankshaft and disposed in a space defined between the engine body and the L-shaped lubricating oil tank. [The feed pump has an oil 25 pickup tube extending into the lubricating oil tank and picks lubricating oil up from the lubricating oil tank through the oil pickup tube and supplies the lubricating oil through oil passages to moving parts in the engine. After circulating through the engine, the lubricating oil drops down into a 30 crank chamber and is collected into a pair of parallel oil sumps extending in a bottom surface of the crank chamber in a longitudinal direction of the crankshaft. Each of the return pumps sends the lubricating oil from a corresponding one of the oil sumps back into the lubricating oil tank through one recovery passage (Bachus & Custodio, 2003)]. Baffle plates are provided above the oil sump so that the lubricating oil in the oil sump is prevented from splashing over the crankshaft. A breather device is provided at an upper end of the lubricating oil tank to interconnect an internal space of the lubricating oil tank and an intake device of the engine for circulating oil vapors into an intake system of the engine.

The disclosed engine has the advantage of having oil passages of reduced lengths, however, it still has a drawback that the lubricating oil tank attached to the side of the engine 45 body increases the engine width (i.e., extent of the engine in a transverse direction of the crankshaft), posing a great spatial limitation when the engine is installed in a motor vehicle or a small boat. Additionally, since the baffle plates are each comprised of a single press-formed rectangular plate extending over and along the entire length of the oil sump, production of such baffle plates requires use of a press-forming mold assembly which is relatively large in size and expensive to manufacture and hence increases the manufacturing cost of the engine. Furthermore, [when the engine is greatly inclined from the vertical or turned upside down, the breather device provided at the upper end of the lubricating oil tank may allow ...