Hi all I'm a newbie to The Late Bay, and need to call upon your expertise and experiences after an oil leak has developed during my 1200 mile tour of France. I have a 2.0 FI 1978 Westie which appears to be shedding about 1 litre of oil every 9 hours of running. You can physically see it dripping every second or so when stationary on tick over. It appears to be coming from the engine/gearbox junction. The rear crankcase seal and clutch was to supposedly been replaced hence my question if it could be anything else. There doesn't appear to be any contamination of the clutch which is fine. Any suggestions?
I'm on my second seal and it still leaks. Think it's either the seals are crap or my shaft is worn a bit. I reckon it's the seal.
Is it common for them to leak that much oil? I'm off to Spa next week and don't want a catastrophic failure.
When the seal goes it'll just pour oil out. Just make sure you keep topping up if you can't replace it before spa.
The problem is likely the flywheel itself - the surface must be super smooth. They are all getting old now and many have a slight groove worn in them. You can get this machined down and fit a seal to suit. Or find a better flywheel. Also it's a common misconception that the face of the seal should be flush with the case - not so, it should be pushed in until it bottoms out, a mm or 2 further in than flush. You can be sure it's square to the flywheel then. Another non-helper to your cause is end float - engine's with end float out of spec seem to whizz through the seals.
