Saturday 8th June - Triumph Oil leak!

 Whilst running my new engine in I had discovered to my horror that it was freely distributing oil to where it shouldn't. Really not an ideal situation, especially when it stained my new block paving driveway. 

The green Cortina was already in the garage though and I needed to carry out a few jobs on that first before I could get the Triumph in for investigation. The first job was to level up the driver's seat as it was leaning in towards the middle slightly. This didn't take long and with a few more careful measurements, the use of some spacers and the help of a spirit level, it was soon done. 

The next job was to replace the starter motor with a brand new one. I also swapped this from a three pin one to a two pin one. The three pin one is a nightmare to remove and re-fit as there is very limited space between the engine and front axle to fit the starter motor through. The two pin starter will provide much more easier access. The last job was to adjust the clutch cable which was a five minute job. With this all done I went to move the Cortina only to find the battery had gone flat. Bugger! 

While I was waiting for the battery charger to do its stuff, I checked the oil on the Triumph and found it was down to three quarters. It shouldn't have been that low as I have only covered about 160 miles since the rebuild, so the leak was proving to be quite severe. I also removed the spark plugs to see what colour they were and was pleased to discover that these weren't far off where they should be. If I can get time, the car will be having a rolling road session before its European trip in September anyway, so this will tune it up perfectly. 

With the cars finally moved around and the Triumph in the garage, I was able to investigate the oil leak. The first thing I noticed was that oil seemed to be forming at the bottom of the dipstick tube. 

I first thought that this was coming from the dipstick tube, but it turned out to be coming from the oil gallery plug just above. I managed to get about quarter of a turn to tighten this which cured the problem. However, this wasn't the only leaking point! There are another two gallery oil plugs, so I checked them and they were loose as well. This can be the problem with a new engine sometimes, bolts, nut and plugs etc are tightened when the engine is cold and then metal expands when it gets hot and things have to be re-torqued. 

Even though all these three plugs had been leaking, but were now not, I still had oil dripping from underneath. I then checked the rocker box cover gasket as my leak was right at the back of the engine. Sure enough, once removed there were signs that oil had been escaping from the back of the cover. You could see where the gasket hadn't been doing its job. 

So I set to work removing the gasket. This was no easy task as some idiot had siliconed it in place (Probably me years ago) and it had stuck solid. The gasket had also been on there a number years and had gone rock hard. It wouldn't come off in one go and the use of various screw drivers and stanley knives had to be employed. eventually, though, it was all off, although in millions of pieces!

So, with the new gasket fitted, had this finally stopped the leak?????? Had it buggery! I was still losing oil at the back of the engine! I then tried the oil filter housing. This is tightened with a single bolt and when I tried this, I managed to get half a turn on it. This seemed to do the trick as another check of laying on the floor showed that I was no longer dripping oil anywhere. I left the car running for another ten minutes and everything was finally dry and as it should be. Success at last! 

So, looking back I didn't just have one oil leak, I had five separate ones, but the leaks on all of them were running back down the engine (The engine tilts back on a Triumph) and all meeting at the same point. At least I had resolved the issue in time for the long drive to Norfolk next Saturday.