Morris Minor Owners Club

Primrose has come up with a new place to leak oil. This time its from the air filter. It seems that such is the vacuum through the air filter pipe, it sucks oil from the rocker cover and into the filter itself, which then settles at the bottom and drips out onto the engine bay floor and onto the ground.

any idea how i can stop/reduce this leak?

Chris,
Drill and tap the inlet manifold (remove it first). Connect to the inlet manifold and not to the air filter. I think your air filter might also need replacing.
Regards
Declan

Errrrrr - if you do that - the engine will never run -UNLESS you put a 1/8" restrictor in the pipe. The normal way is to use the later HS2 (or 4) carb with the pipe on the side - this is where the breather connects. And yes - that air filter will be horribly soaked in oil mess now.......

bmcecosse wrote:Errrrrr - if you do that - the engine will never run -UNLESS you put a 1/8" restrictor in the pipe. The normal way is to use the later HS2 (or 4) carb with the pipe on the side - this is where the breather connects. And yes - that air filter will be horribly soaked in oil mess now.......

Restrictor obviously-but a 1/8" brass tube epoxied into the manifold will work-there is no need to replace the carb. There is a spacer available from Minispares
http://www.minispares.com/Product.aspx? ... 394&title=

Regards
Declan

Yes - I did this years ago, and it works v well (with some upset to the idle...) - but you don't mention the small size in the earlier post - just 'drill and tap' which could be thought to be the full size of the breather pipe!

ok, so what exactly do i do?

drill and tap something? replace the filter? replace the carb?

for note, my rocker cover has a vent pipe that is curved instead of the straight variety. when i had the straight one on, i didnt get this problem.

Unless the bent one is blocked - (or perhaps the straight one WAS blocked!) - it can't make any difference. You need to change the air filter because it will now be soaked/blocked with oily mess. You need to find a way to remove the fumes efficiently. Easiest is to use an HS type carb with the vent tube on the side. Otherwise - drill and tap a hole into the inlet manifold - plug it with a stub tube with a 1/8" central hole - fit the breather tube to the stub - retune the carb . Simples!!

i already have a off take from the manifold for the servo brakes, so ever so slightly reluctant to add yet another hole to it. ill see if there is some way of reducing the diameter of the pipe and thus the amount of suck it has?

NO - don't interfere with the servo pipe. Your best bet is an HS carb.....

right, so new carb then , however, if i found the body of a HS2 carb, would i be able to transplant the bits from my current carb to the body?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HS2-1-1-4-SU- ... 415e6310cb

this is the body i have seen

Not really - there are too many different parts - and that seems a LOT of money for what it is. There are a lot of rogues out there on ebay - be careful...... You could upgrade to an HIF 38.......
Something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mini-hif38-ca ... 3cbd430fa8

i have a HIF 38 and a 44, but i could never get them to work right and i got rid of my 3 branch manifold and exhaust the other day, so i have to stick with the standard carb.

so considering i am not going to butcher my new manifold to take a vacuum pipe from manifold to it, i dont want to swap my carb (the car is only 2 years old), so what else would be an option?

if memory recalls, some rocker covers had a plate partially covering the hole for the breather, thus i presume reducing the vacuum power. however, mine hasn't got one, so i could try this i suppose, but other than that, my next option would be to just take off the pipe and leave it open to the atmosphere

Chris,
Why don't you try the spacer I mentioned above?

i did think about that, but its just a tiny wee pipe going into the spacer and the rocker cover pipe is quite chunky, so i was slightly perplexed how i could reduce the size of the pipe,

Could always rob a PCV valve from a CVH engined ford.
Its a little black 'box' which contains a lump of wire gauze. Hose goes from your breather pipe to the PCV and another pip comes out the PCV and into your airfilter.

You then clean this as part of your regular maintenace - tis basically an oil trap, same as the one fitted to the chain cover on 1275 engines.

now that seems a logical idea, dosent mean i have to mess around with pipes/manifolds/new carbs, just pop it in line with breather pipe.

ill have a wee little look for one

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Engine-Breath ... 2314a6d805

would something like this work?

You've already TRIED feeding it into your air filter - that's what started the thread...

yes and trying to put it onto the carb (HIF38 and 44) didnt work either, so i am totally stumped really. putting a pipe after the carb will knacker the slow idle.

all i want to do is stop the oil leaking all over my clean engine bay

Exactly - the HIF 38 does work - and very well too - for everyone but you!!! However - I have a solution for you - it is possible to make a hole in the cast aluminium mounting flange to which your air filter casing fits - and to insert the breather tube into that hole. The fumes are then drawn into the carb AFTER the paper filter but still before the throttle plate - so the idle is not affected..... Win-win situation.....