Leak finder?

I have heard of a procedure in which you put some sort of dye in your oil and then after running the motor for a while, you use a black light under the car to figure out where leaks are happening. Has anyone ever tried this, and do you know what the dye is called? I have a leak in my Spitfire that the source is hard to pin down and I though this might help, but I have no experience with it.

Basil

Just a thought here...not sure this applies to you, but I'm guessing you have a modified crankcase vent system:

My 1500 Spridget motor (originally from a Spit), developed a leak I couldn't track down, even though the engine was completely rebuilt (new seals, gaskets and so forth). I re-did the pan gasket, valve cover gasket and a bunch of other stuff...no luck. While discussing it with a friend, he asked about my crankcase vent system.....my car has a non-stock carb setup and I've replaced the normal emissions crank vent with a simple homemade road-draft tube. Seems the 1500 really needs a bit of vacuum applied to it's crankcase or it'll blow oil out of the dipstick. I rigged my valve cover vent directly to the air filter, proving very light suction.....no more leaks!

^^^ that sounds like good advice.

Here is a site for a leak finder- https://www.jcwhitney.com/product.jhtml?CATID=180561&BQ=jcw2

What??? You're trying to fix oil leaks in a British car...My good man, don't you have any respect for TRADITION...

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by aeronca65t:
Just a thought here...not sure this applies to you, but I'm guessing you have a modified crankcase vent system:

My 1500 Spridget motor (originally from a Spit), developed a leak I couldn't track down, even though the engine was completely rebuilt (new seals, gaskets and so forth). I re-did the pan gasket, valve cover gasket and a bunch of other stuff...no luck. While discussing it with a friend, he asked about my crankcase vent system.....my car has a non-stock carb setup and I've replaced the normal emissions crank vent with a simple homemade road-draft tube. Seems the 1500 really needs a bit of vacuum applied to it's crankcase or it'll blow oil out of the dipstick. I rigged my valve cover vent directly to the air filter, proving very light suction.....no more leaks!<hr></blockquote>

I do have a crank case vent system and when I installed my two Webber carbs, the filters had little plastic pieces that popped into holes in the back of the square filter holders. I surmised that was to accomodate the crank case vent system, so I ran the crank case vent into those holes in the filter. So, the Crank Case vent should be getting some amount of suction. But I'm going to check the dipstick area!

lawguy Cool, I didn't know JCWhitney had a web site! Wow, now I can order my fuzzy dice online! (BUt seriously, I may buy that leak finder kit)

Basil

[ 09-26-2002: Message edited by: Basil ]</p>

Fuzzy dice- c'mon, step into the 21st century, you can get a lighted set of dice, as well as a neon shift knob and a turn signal flasher that plays "Love Me Tender." But seriously, some of the stuff there is decent. I bought a gas tank for my S-Jimmy there online, and over a year later- so far, so good. Also, many of the tools they sell there are the indentical ones you would find in an auto parts store (my MityVac, for instance).

Good luck finding that leak!!

That oil leak is the most important part of the
"Rust prevent system" deployed on every British
made car!
I have heard that the solution is a phosphate
(read soap) and any good 75-150w black light
will work with it, i have used similar products
in the HVAC business, also have Magna-glow crack
detect, i use the same black light for both, yes
i do get my ELP posters out and go "wow dude! thats cool"

tt
just plain clueless near stlouis