All righty then......took it for a spin around the neighborhood today, seems to run nicely although I didn't push it at all. Driving down a main street, accelerating up in 2nd gear and *bang* it died......I managed to coast over to a side street, popped the hood. It was clearly electrical as it was instantaneous and I could see gas in the filter. It has done this before and the cure as far as I can tell is just to tighten the push on connectors at the coil. so I messed with those and it fired right up and drove back with no further incident. I gave them all a good squeeze with some flat nose pliers and I'll try again in a bit. The weather is perfect for a nice afternoon drive but I need to get it aligned first.....I guess when I changed the steering rack boot even tho I counted the turns I must not have gotten it back right. I can't do that till Monday so it will be just short drives around the hood for now. Progress.
Sheesh, I have never had this much trouble keeping oil in a car before! I came back from my test drive and parked outside the garage and left it idle while I got the lift ready and saw these three spots.....the big puddle is oil, looks like it's coming out of the speedo end cover on the transmission. The middle splatters seem to be coming from either the oil filter itself or the pressure pipe that fits into the top of the filter housing. The gold colored puddle is brake fluid, but I think that came because I overfilled the master cylinder while I was bleeding the brakes.....so I'm not concerned with it.....the calipers, hoses and master are all dry after my run. This pic is from when it was idling outside the garage door. So, drain the oil, drain the coolant and remover the radiator. Then to hold the engine up I went and bought an engine support bar from HF......that way I'm not trying to support it with the engine hoist (then the legs get in the way) or a jack (which would keep me from being able to raise or lower the lift. Once I get it all supported I can remove the motor mount on that end and get that cover off and reseal it. I have spare gaskets and plenty of cheeze whiz, which seemed to do the trick on the diff covers - once I figured out where the oil was really coming from. Sure don't understand why these gaskets won't seal up on their own....they are the "better" kind - the thicker ones with a sealant in them......they shouldn't need additional sealer too. I'll have to look and make sure there's no crack in the end cover - I sure didn't see one but then I thought I put a new o-ring on the right side diff cover too - and found out differently. No idea why I was getting the drips off the oil filter, I can't feel any leakage around the pipe but I had one with a tiny pinhole in it once, maybe it's something like that? Once I get the speedo cover fixed I'll run it some more and see what happens. It really bugs me that these things didn't leak in the engine stand, but wait till it's in the car and all buttoned up to do it! It was 75* today and Don and I had planned to go do a 100 mile or so drive in our cars to make sure they are ready for the drive to Va in a few weeks......at least he got to do so in his Pup, which ran flawlessly.
So today I pulled the radiator and set up my new HF engine support bar so I could pull the motor mount off and get the cover out. It's a bit of a challenge as there's not enough room to remove the long bolts that go thru the cover, so putting it back means juggling all those while getting it over the dowel pins and engaging the speedo drive in the end of the input shaft..... Pic shows the cover after I removed the old gasket - could not see any reason for it to leak, but I had a new thicker version so I put the cheese whiz on both sides and put it all back together again. I poured the oil back in and I'll let it sit overnight, if I don't see any oil drips I'll put the radiator back in and run it on the rack for a half hour or so.....then let it sit again overnight. If no drips after that I'll drive it some more - tho that may have to wait till Friday as it's supposed to rain for the next three days - might even get some sleet or snow on Wed! Sure hope this is the end of this problem.
OK, no drips this morning, so I finished putting the radiator in and fired it up. I ran it for about 20 minutes till it was fully warmed up and shut it off. That was a few hours ago and again - no leaks. I think it's good now. Finally! Don't know why the oil filter had oil dripping off of it, I can't find anything loose or leaking and I wiped it off before I ran it today and no leaks now.....I'll drive it again when the roads dry up maybe Friday or Saturday and if I don't find any leaks I think it's good to go at last. I'll probably retorque the head and reset the valves one more time too, then if I can get a few hundred miles on it before we head of to Va I'll try to tune the carb a little as well.
I think you can buy it in squeeze tubes or short caulk gun type tubes too, and it's way less expensive......
Yeah... I googled it and noticed that... It's also available in three colors, black, grey and red.... The grey is a good color choice with your silver painted castings....
It says it’s sensor safe and not for use with gasoline. It does not mention what type of sensors but it is exposure to air that cures it.
Thanks for the answer. I'd guess the sensors they mean are O2 sensors. When RTV gasket goo first came out it killed O2 sensors. Not sure how, but it happened. I'd think by now all cheese whizz RTV is safe. But not on samiches.
Today I replaced a burnt out eyeball in Skooby the clubster. First time I'd ever had to replace an HID bulb. Really wasn't bad, maybe a bit fiddly. It was so much fun I replaced the other side too. When I checked the new one against the OEM one man was the color faded. Note to self always replace in pairs.
Everything's buttoned up and ready to go.....I re-torqued the head and reset the valve clearances, now all I need to do is have the alignment checked then Don and I want to do some more highway runs to try and build miles before we head off to CMU 63 in Wytheville in a couple of weeks. So far, no drips of any kind......we'll see what it looks like after the alignment and our first 100 mile run this weekend.
Today I went to my usual shop to have the alignment checked, only to find that their Hunter machine was down for the count, and the other machine would not work with these tiny 13" tires since it's mostly used for SUVs and pickemup trucks. However they did turn me on to a high perfomance shop just around the corner and they said they could do it - next Tuesday. So I set an appointment but in the meantime I may try and check the toe myself as I think that's all that it needs.....and we're leaving one week after that, which doesn't leave me much time to find another shop if they can't. EXCEPT....... While we had it up in the air I found yet another damn oil leak! This time it looks like it's coming either from the timing chain cover gasket or the front pulley seal. Either way I'll need to pull the radiator again and see if I can fix it. Since I have all weekend now (Don and I were going to do some highway runs this weekend) I'll see about getting that fixed, plus I need to modify the ramps for my lift as now that I have a center muffler it hits every time I try and go on or off the lift. It's always some damn thing. On the good news side, the engine seems to already be freeing up some as it's feeling better each time I drive it. On the not as good side, I think I prefer the 3-1 diff ratio over the 2:76-1, so if someone has a 3-1 they don't need I'm in the market. I won't change it before this trip and I may not change it at all if it turns out I like it better after we've done the approx. 3K miles of this run that we'll do. I had a 2:76 in Buzz and I liked it just fine in him.....FWIW. More as it happens.
I read all your projects and I can’t remember a rebuild of an engine ever spring leaks like this one.
Real British cars always leaked... It's a feature... The oil spray keeps the steel bits from rusting away... You don't change the oil.... You just top it up... That's why they made the Mini transmission and engine share the same oil..... Made it easier to top up the oil level for both systems.... Fixing oil leaks will accelerate rusting......
Well, it's back together.................again! I had to remove the radiator again to get to the timing chain cover, in this pic you can see the telltale stain of the oil.....this part is actually the one I took off and resealed last - which makes me think it wasn't leaking but rather the timing cover was dripping down onto the transmission case....oh well. The good news such as it is is that the crank seal appears not to be leaking, which only leaves the cover gasket. Getting the crank pulley bolt loose (65 ft lbs torque) required removing the starter so I could lock the flywheel. After that it was just a matter of taking out all the bolts and removing the cover. The gasket I used was one of the thick cardboard style but I didn't use any sealer as I thought it would be plenty good without it. Apparently I was wrong......it left a ton of residue to clean off and it was in a very awkward position, but I fired up my air powered drill with a good new wire brush and made short work of it. Then plenty of cheese whiz on both sides of the new gasket and back together it went..... I'll finish up installing the radiator this morning then take it for a drive as the leak only developed when driven.....and then when parked. If this doesn't settle it I don't know what to do next. There's no where else on this end of the motor that oil can leak from!
Dave is it possible that the timing cover flanges that bolt it on are warped? I know it isn't a GTI, but GTI's suffer from reusing the timing cover. They all bend a bit when removed, even if they don't look like it. I know the LBC one is made of stouter stuff, but ya never know.
Man you are determined guy! When I had my Alfa Spider I would go into panic mode if I didn’t see a little oil oozing from it. Now with my old 1953 Indian I just through a rag under it to catch the drip it will make after riding. But it should drip a little, it’s from the crank case breather. Indian was smart, the copper breather line goes under the motor and then points at the chain. The oil from the breather keeps the chain oiled. Really oiled. You have the wipe down the rear wheel after a few rides. All joking aside. You are a craftsman of the first order. Awesome work Dave!