I have restored 4 cars now none of them leaked.. Until I got a Stag. For a year now I have been chasing leaks and last week I had a go at the J type leak that was bothering me. 3 drives now and no drips on the floor.. success!! now I'm not pretending its completely dry but what is there is minimal and can be wiped off every couple of weeks before it hits the floor.
Here's the list.
Cooling:
freeze plugs on head seeped the first week or so.. they sealed themselves, I guess the gunk the machine shop used worked after a few heat cycles.
Steering:
The high pressure connections needed tightening at both ends, I had erred on the safe side when installing them. Then after quite a while the right side bellows started leaking. It was full of oil, I knew this deep down as I was regularly topping up. Eventually I worked out that it was in fact the left side (its LHD car) that was actually leaking, it had passed the oil to the right through the air balancing line. As it was spring and I did not fancy rebuilding the rack again until winter I decided to go against my dislike of snake oils and threw 1/2 bottle of Lucas rack reviver in there.. Blow Me if it didn't work! hardly a leak now and I have not topped up since, then.. 6 months ago.
Engine:
I had the usual oil dripping off the clutch slave. Its so difficult to find where it all comes from. Some from the half moon seal on rhs head, that was trimmed and re-sealed. Some from the sump gasket at the rear, I torqued up the bolts again, they were alarmingly loose despite my torqueing them down originally. Then installed a 2mm seal on the oil pump relief valve. there's still a tiny amount of oil that accumulates there, probably from elsewhere but its pretty good. Finally I suspect my rear engine seal is not completely dry as I am seeing some stained oil around the bellhousing, I have a double lip seal to go in but that's definitely a Winter job.
Overdrive:
Again the oil gets splattered everywhere so hard to pin down. I established that its not the angle drive, which was a surprise, but in fact the bolts for the cone clutch. I had installed copper washers on the lower ones but not the upper ones and the upper left was the main culprit, could not get a tool on it from below so went through the hole for the gear lever, this took 3 hours.. . All now have a copper washer and a little rtv.
I'm going to give the 67 MGB a run today, it has not dripped on the floor for years!
Here's the list.
Cooling:
freeze plugs on head seeped the first week or so.. they sealed themselves, I guess the gunk the machine shop used worked after a few heat cycles.
Steering:
The high pressure connections needed tightening at both ends, I had erred on the safe side when installing them. Then after quite a while the right side bellows started leaking. It was full of oil, I knew this deep down as I was regularly topping up. Eventually I worked out that it was in fact the left side (its LHD car) that was actually leaking, it had passed the oil to the right through the air balancing line. As it was spring and I did not fancy rebuilding the rack again until winter I decided to go against my dislike of snake oils and threw 1/2 bottle of Lucas rack reviver in there.. Blow Me if it didn't work! hardly a leak now and I have not topped up since, then.. 6 months ago.
Engine:
I had the usual oil dripping off the clutch slave. Its so difficult to find where it all comes from. Some from the half moon seal on rhs head, that was trimmed and re-sealed. Some from the sump gasket at the rear, I torqued up the bolts again, they were alarmingly loose despite my torqueing them down originally. Then installed a 2mm seal on the oil pump relief valve. there's still a tiny amount of oil that accumulates there, probably from elsewhere but its pretty good. Finally I suspect my rear engine seal is not completely dry as I am seeing some stained oil around the bellhousing, I have a double lip seal to go in but that's definitely a Winter job.
Overdrive:
Again the oil gets splattered everywhere so hard to pin down. I established that its not the angle drive, which was a surprise, but in fact the bolts for the cone clutch. I had installed copper washers on the lower ones but not the upper ones and the upper left was the main culprit, could not get a tool on it from below so went through the hole for the gear lever, this took 3 hours.. . All now have a copper washer and a little rtv.
I'm going to give the 67 MGB a run today, it has not dripped on the floor for years!
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