Another item of interest in Lindy's J-5 was its custom rocker arm lubrication. The Spirit of St. Louis team searched for a target endurance of 40 hours based on their estimates for the time it would take to cross the Atlantic. The J-5 could only run for a few hours with its rocker arm grease fittings. They had to come up with a solution to this lubrication problem.
On the J-5, the rocker arms and push rods were completely enclosed, a first for any air-cooled engine made in the U.S. Casting technology still did not allow the rocker arm chambers to be cast with the head. Rocker arm lubrication was accomplished using grease fittings. The Lindbergh engine had specially built spring-loaded grease reservoirs that allowed around forty hours of continuous running without manual greasing of the fittings.
Last edited by GAU-8 : 04-19-2008 at 14:05 PM.
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