Last weekend I decided to have another shot at stemming the tide of oil flooding from the engine. It was a repeat run of a while back when the bus smoked when going uphill because the oil dripped onto the exhaust. And it went from needing occasional top ups to half a litre to do 20 miles. What I found as it snowed gently from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening. 1. The front fuel pump nut had loosened off and oil came out from under the fuel pump 2. The crank case breather hose had got kinked and was either not letting the pressure out or not enough gas escaped. 3. Aftermarket oil cooler standoffs are longer and the dimples in the cooler are deeper. So the oil seals dont squash properly when the nuts are tight and there were black stains where oil came out. This was probably the worst leak, as it was being spread by the fan in time honoured manner. Not helped by some roughness of the original engine casting around the holes into the engine block. 4. My replacement crankshaft oil seal leaks a little. Remedies Fitted the original oil cooler and adaptor block on new seals after cleaning up all of the mating surfaces. I already binned the EMPI adaptor block as it was machined by a monkey. Tightened down the fuel pump nuts. Crankshaft seal - leave for now. Might have been the breather pipe making it worse. Put the fanshroud back on with the thermostat wire down the wrong hole . Didnt notice until I was connecting up hoses etc. Two hours later engine out and back and the wire was in the right place. Used some of the time welding up holes in my 2 year old heat exchangers (18000 miles) . Bits of old PC case chopped up .. Discovered that the corrugated plastic air hoses from the heat exchangers are adjustable in length after spending ages fighting them in the last few times I fitted them in - it is also easier if you put them in front of a 600 watt plasterers light to soften them a bit so they squeeze easily in place. Then you can unscrew the end nearest the engine to lengthen them. Took it for my run to work and back and found that it took about 15 miles to warm up and very little hot air came out of the dashboard So I checked out the thermostat as there also have been problems with too hot running when the thermostat was adjusted differently. I checked the cold thermostat length against the figure mentioned on the Ratwell site : about 35mm. It was a bit long and cooled crookedly. But it rattled like it had liquid in it still. Outside, it had bits of dirt held with oil and grease between the vanes - got it out with very hot water and a toothbrush. It shrank back straight and a couple of mm shorter (but still a bit long) . Fitted thermostat in the dark last night and now I get lots of warm air from the vents when the pressure in the fan shroud is higher when the engine is cold, and then I got nice hot air tonight from the vents when I did my run from Fareham to Hamble 'as fast as possible' on the M27. And the oil temp hit about 110 degrees C at the end of the run. Success. Still drips a bit of oil but it could still be old oil dripping from inside the fanshroud.....
