My engine HAD an oil clutched cooling fan return oil from which flowed into the front cover in addition to any other oil supply routing there if any . It is this any that I want to know more about because I have replaced the fan with a continuously engaged one without the clutch and its oil system. I would not want to leave the gears hi and dry so I wonder what other oil sources are flowing there (surely not all 912's use a hydraulically clutched fan)?
I would think all the 912’s made in the last 40 years would use an oil driven blower but thats just speculation
The F4L912 that I built in 2008 came from a shovel and it had a fixed belt-driven fan with the exhaust downnstream form the cylinders louvered by a thermostat. Except for that thermostat not being entirely mechanical I thought of that as a safer design. Complexity ALWAYS increases the potential for trouble, take engine oil for example, I get nervous when I see that circulating anywhere outside the block An air cooled engine does need an oil cooler but if I were designing one I would make a cheesecake type of oil pan and blow air through that, keeping the oil inside the pan.
The Blower fan on lots of Deutz engines used the centre section as a centrifugal oil filter that you would remove the front cap and clean out, I cannot understand why you would want to mess about with doing a modification to something that works to perfection??? the belt driven blower fans have a safety control on the jockey wheel that cuts the engine off if the belts fail, I tend to think the Folk in Germany know exactly what they are doing with their engines, if they needed any improvement I feel they would have done it, the fan drive oil is temp controlled I think you need to put it back as they built it, the air blown is more than able to control the heat as long as all the panels and plates are in place, the oil cooler has a very good home ex factory with loads of wind blowing through it, make sure its clean through the fins and it will work perfectly.
This video show sporadic squirts but I can't identify any systemic spray in it.
This engine will, in its winter role, execute what is known as a critical mission which must not fail once it has begun. So if the belt breaks and cooling stops then I run the engine until it seizes in hopes of getting to the end of my 3000 ft driveway/runway one way or another . BTW both versions are belt-driven and mine didn't even come with a cutout switch or any electrical shutoff provision. As a last move in rationalising it down to being not only electronics but even electricity free I might install a spring starter some time. But let's instead talk about oil behind the front cover.