Trying to narrow down oil leaks

[ChrisE]

So it now has become very apparent that the breather valve isn’t just a nice flappy thing, it is in fact probably one of the most crucial parts of the engine for keeping the oil regime working correctly. As I saw in post viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5461&start=15#p42606 I had a positive pressure in the crankcase. I’ve been told that the pressure should be negative (a partial vacuum) and this is critical to keeping all the oil in the engine. There are of course no oil seals in push-rods, in the starting handle, in the dynamo drive, the flywheel and so on.

So it came to the Braford Industrial Museum gathering and Dad and I made the 40 mile trip there having re-jigged the flap valve. Michael Koch-Osbourne kindly let me test my engine breather against his as he proudly told me his car (1927) had used only a litre of oil in a 2 week drive round Scotland. Hey-presto! My flap-fettling had worked and now we have a negative pressure of about 400mm of oil in the manometer.



Sorted!

On the Sunday, I took off the diverter valve and re-built all that with new coper washers and stuff and that seemed to cure a lot of random drip oil leaks from oil lines.

















There was much filing of copper washers and stuff because I only had metric ones (12.0mm) when I needed ½” ones (12.7mm) and the shoulder on the unions was not enough to cater for the next size up (14mm)
Mid-week this week, I drove to Dads to dry things out and although the (negative) pressure was good, a pretty bad leak had developed from a bolt on the oil pump, so back to fixing that!

Chris

[ChrisE]

So today’s task was to take off the oil pump, fit a new gasket and hope that fixed it. I took off the inlet manifold and carburettor (to gain easy access) but the oil pump even with the nuts off didn’t want to seem to budge. Not having ever taken one off, and not wanting to force anything, I took off the whole timing case front (with pump attached) and then could see much better how it was formed. It’s a good job I did as there is a sneaky little key-way thing that could well have fallen into the timing case which if undetected would have caused carnage!
























A new gasket made out of 0.4mm paper and pump refit, it was going well. I primed the pump (very important!) and fired up. Perfect – and loads of (new to me) knowledge gained. Fantastic. A short 20 mile run and no real oil leaks. Very happy bunny (except…………)

Except now my clutch is playing up. It doesn’t seem to disengage properly, nor move out (from the flywheel) massively and makes a funny noise. That’s going to be another day I’m afraid as it’s a day’s work for me on my own. I don’t know what it is, maybe the main bearing isn’t free (It’s only 100 miles old?) I really don’t know. Something’s not right though.

Chris