Thanksgiving week I discovered that I had roasted the rings on number 2 cylinder to the piston. So with Kilbourne’s and Drybread’s help I disassembled the engine, fixed the problem and reassembled it. While the cowls were off, I decide to change the oil and filter. I have the spin-on adapter for the O-200, which uses the Champion CH48108 oil filter.

So with everything back together I hand-propped the engine to life. NO OIL PRESSURE! Shut ‘er down.

OK, you DID remember to remove that old T-shirt from the #2 hole in the crank case, right?

Maybe I didn’t give it enough time for the oil pressure to come up. Fire ‘er up again, wait 45 seconds. NO OIL PRESSURE!

I have TWO gauges, one analog and one digital. Can’t be the gauges. OK, maybe the oil pressure line is plugged. Remove it, fire ‘er up again. No oil comes out of the line at the engine -- NO OIL PRESSURE!

Finally, it hits me – perhaps the OIL FILTER is not letting oil pass through. I remove the brand new oil filter and it is completely dry inside. BINGO! Donnya at Carlsbad Aircraft supply is gracious enough to replace the filter for free and return the defective filter to the supplier. Put on the replacement filter and everything is JUST FINE. Dave and Steve say they have NEVER heard of such a thing!

So, next time you change your oil filter, if you get NO OIL PRESSURE, you might want to look to the filter! (And, yes, the strangest things ALWAYS happen to ME).