Morris Minor Owners Club

my traveller remy has a very unfortunate oil leak, since last week when i got it back from the garage i have had to have the radiaotr changed and put 1 litre of oil in every 1/2 hour when driving. it's dripping off the engine somewhere but i can't see where and covered the bottom of my car! driving back from torquay yesterday the clutch started slipping too. Anyone offer any advice? Also anyone know any good garages in plymouth that could help me out?

Wow I didn't know we had any plymouth members on here.

Unfortunately I probably can't help you too much with the technicalities. Although you could try putting a large piece of cardboard underneath the car to try and tell whereabouts in the engine bay the leak's coming from.

With reference to garages there is a Moggy specialist nearby in wembury, called classic motors (01752 863777 I think).

Chris

Hello Robin,
could it be from the rear crank oil seal?, just the remark about the slipping clutch. Are all the breathers clear?, and are you sure you are not overfilling the engine? If you check the level directly you stop you tend to get a lower reading than true level until all the oil drains back down.

Alec

Ig the leak is ffrom the rear crankshaft bearing then the oil will
be dripping from the split pin at the bottom of the clutch housing.
If the entire bottom of the sump is oily then probably the front
timing chain oil seal and /or the gasket has gone. It certainly
sounds as though this has happened suddenly. it is rare but
possible that the plastic insert into which you push the dip stick
is NOT pushed fully down into the engine block. This would give
you a false reading and cause you to overfill the sump??

if your driving at a reasonably high speed for a while.
the oil loss from a worn crank main bearing will be high. as the revs incress the oil pressure increases there for the oil loss rate goes up
times by the time the engine was running, you can get an idea of the loss rate. fill it up and run it on a fast drive . park up turn off and quickly run to the front and look underneath. this will allow you to see where the oil is comming from. look for the split pin that Wille mentions. if its main bearing leak the oil will still be driping there.

For 2 litres an hour oil loss, that's something major. I've never heard of a rear crank seal quite going quite that bad (except for some BMC goldseal units, but they were faulty from new). It seems odd that it happened all of a sudden.
There's good advice already - if the engine and sump has oil on it then it is leaking further forward than the rear crank seal. If it is the crank seal it will mainly leak into the gearbox bellhousing.
The cardboard under the car only works for a brand new leak. Once you have been driving and spread the oil around all that it will tell you is that the underside of the car is covered with oil. If it is somewhere on the engine but you can't see where due to excess oil, you may have to give the engine a good clean with something like gunk, then run it to trace the fresh oil.
Good luck!