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worlds worst oil leak

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M

MDCanaday

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Last spring I put on a new spin on oil filter adapter on my tr4.Cleaned,lock tighted and torqued.It worked quite well until last Thursday,when it fell off with no warning,in traffic,in the middle of town,on lunch hour.I heard the noise of the filter under the car and saw the wet pavement in the rear view mirror,looked at the oil pressure as it hit ZERO and shut off the motor then coasted into a parking lot.....Bout an hour latter got back with the OE canister and 7 qts of 10/40 to find 2 firetrucks 3 patrol cars 1 street sweeper spreading several hundred pounds of oil dry all over what had been the main drag of Topeka Ks.,but looked more like an Exon Valdeze re-enactment.
The fire guys were really nice and even had put oil dry right up to my rear bumper,and then retrieved the filter.I still dont know why it failed,you can see the thread sealer on the bolt still.But I dont think I will get another one any time soon,I am just glad it didnt make the news at 10 o'clock....and didnt blow a very fine motor.
MD(mad dog)
 
D

Dale

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Hi Guy!
Sure nothing that brings 'em out like an oil spill these days. I'll admit we were pretty lacks years ago, but it sure seems like we've gone to the exreme. The TR3A I owned for 10 days had a spin on filter when we left Phoenix with it, but failed similarily after 25 miles. As I remember, the threaded piece, like a short pipe nipple, that the filter srewed onto had been stripped out of the cast pot metal housing and a repair had been attempted with rivets, but it only held for a little while. The fellow who bought it from me, brought a stock filter head with him when he picked it up and we put it and a new canister type filter on, before he loaded it onto the auto transport. I was lucky that I was admiring the neat gauges when the oil pressure dropped to 10 psi then zilch or I'd have had nothing to sell. And I really needed the money at the time. Glad your deal wasn't worse.
 
J

JohnB

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Now you've got me worried......

I just bought a spin-on adapter for my recent rebuild TR. I must admit I was a bit worried when the instructions said to be very careful in torqueing the unit to the old housing, so as not to pull the two apart. That seemed to me to be a bit of a weak point.

Any one else have any problem with these adapters? Got mine from Moss.......

John B.
 
LBCs_since_1988

LBCs_since_1988

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Yikes. I prefer the charm of the original canister. My modern Volvos have got 'em too! (albiet plastic ones).
 
TR6oldtimer

TR6oldtimer

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You would have made the front page here in Santa Cruz, and you would have been billed for the cleanup, and the article would have gone on and on about the virtues of electric cars and bicycles.

I glad to hear you caught if before the engine seized.
 
UmmYeahOk

UmmYeahOk

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Did you tell them that its a british car, and thats a "feature"?
 
D

Deleted member 8987

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I saw the title of this thread, thought, yeah, Triumph.....but then remembered the worst was the BSA's........
 
TR3driver

TR3driver

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Yet another "improvement" ...

I'm with Dale, my guess is that the nipple pulled out of the filter head. There IS a reason the factory bolt is so darned long; there is a whole lot of force pulling on that bolt and the threads in the head get worn after all these years.
 
angelfj1

angelfj1

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Thank you for the report. Could you clarify something, please? Did the adapter/filter assembly loosen and come away from the block or did the oil filter only loosen and fall off?

<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">This could be serious!</span> </span> :madder: These spin-on adapters are used by many British sports cars. If there is a basic manufacturing problem someone should be notified. The next victim may not be as lucky as you and may trash their engine.
 
G

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Usually, I am the guy DIRECTLY BEHIND the guy that this happens to. And usually, I will have just washed and waxed my car, and put something NEW on it. Like a bra and wire wheel hubcaps.
 
Moseso

Moseso

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Better 'n riding a motorcycle behind 'm!!!!!

:sick:
 
UmmYeahOk

UmmYeahOk

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TR3BGeorge said:
Usually, I am the guy DIRECTLY BEHIND the guy that this happens to. And usually, I will have just washed and waxed my car, and put something NEW on it. Like a bra and wire wheel hubcaps.
Click to expand...

and usually the guy has no idea about it either.

Just the other day I was confused as to why my neighborhood had such dense fog. You could barely see anything. Eventually we caught up to a guy at a stop sign. He had blown a head gasket! It was him. We had to wait a while before pulling into traffic due to the limited visibility.

I have another story. Thankfully it wasnt oil. But a couple years ago I worked at a Super Target. We had notice at the registers that a customer had purchased a damaged bag of kitty litter. I followed the trail outside to see if I could locate them and offer to exchange the bag. I then took it upon myself to clean the mess. They went down every aisle!!! There was an uninterrupted trail of litter down each and every aisle!!! Theres no way there could have been any litter left! But they loaded it into their vehicle anyway.
 
TR3driver

TR3driver

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Few decades back, a friend of mine and I started out to drive our LBCs from IN to FL via DC. We weren't more than 100 miles down the road when he called on the CB and asked if I was leaking glycol ... there were drops all over his MGA's windshield!

Turned out someone had forgotten to tighten one of the cam bearing retainer bolts, and the special bolt had fallen out somewhere along I-70. There was a steady stream of oil pouring out the side of the block!

Luck was with us, though, there was a bolt & nut of the right thread in the tool box. Plugged the hole with it, and went on.

Later, after his CB had quit (due to an electrical fire), my clutch slave fell off while I was trying to follow him through Charleston (and had no idea where he was going). But that's a different story.

I miss those days. No money, but no responsibility either. It didn't really matter if we ever got where we were going, or home again for that matter. Happy times.
 
Perrymip

Perrymip

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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]I miss those days. No money, but no responsibility either. It didn't really matter if we ever got where we were going, or home again for that matter. Happy times.[/QUOTE]

Perfect fit: attitude to car.
 
UmmYeahOk

UmmYeahOk

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TR3driver said:
Few decades back, a friend of mine and I started out to drive our LBCs from IN to FL via DC. We weren't more than 100 miles down the road when he called on the CB and asked if I was leaking glycol ... there were drops all over his MGA's windshield!

Turned out someone had forgotten to tighten one of the cam bearing retainer bolts, and the special bolt had fallen out somewhere along I-70. There was a steady stream of oil pouring out the side of the block!

Luck was with us, though, there was a bolt & nut of the right thread in the tool box. Plugged the hole with it, and went on.

Later, after his CB had quit (due to an electrical fire), my clutch slave fell off while I was trying to follow him through Charleston (and had no idea where he was going). But that's a different story.

I miss those days. No money, but no responsibility either. It didn't really matter if we ever got where we were going, or home again for that matter. Happy times.
Click to expand...

You just reminded me of when I watch old shows where the characters get stranded, or some other type of trouble. I just yell at them "why dont you use your cell phone?!?" as if they could hear me, or as if they had access to one back then.

...Of course should I ever lose my cell phone, I wouldnt be able to call anyone. Theres no point in remember numbers when the device stores them for you. ...isnt technology awesome?
 
TR3driver

TR3driver

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UmmYeahOk said:
...isnt technology awesome?
Click to expand...
Yes, but it's amazing how dependent we become on it. Can you imagine driving cross-country today without so much as a credit card? Back then, I got pretty adept at repairing my car with what I could find along the road. If I didn't happen to have a suitable bolt, I would have found a stick and carved it to fit the hole. Fuses made from cigarette foil (tho not so much on the TR as it didn't have many fuses to begin with); bearings made from old soft drink cups. Never had occasion to try it, but I've even heard that a pair of lady's pantyhose will do for a fan belt, enough to limp home.

Friend of mine once told me of a Model T motor that always knocked ... hard to imagine how an engine with only 4.5:1 compression can knock! When they got it apart, they discovered that one of the pistons was wood! Apparently, someone had whittled it from a chunk of maple ... didn't work well, but worked well enough.
 
UmmYeahOk

UmmYeahOk

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Its a shame they dont teach that type of stuff in the scouts... ...or maybe they do, and the girl scouts are just left behind.

TR3driver said:
Never had occasion to try it, but I've even heard that a pair of lady's pantyhose will do for a fan belt, enough to limp home.
Click to expand...

I saw that in an anime! Not lying!
 
HerronScott

HerronScott

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TR3driver said:
Never had occasion to try it, but I've even heard that a pair of lady's pantyhose will do for a fan belt, enough to limp home.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid that I can attest that does not work for our TR3/4 engines probably due to the very wide belt. Not long after I had restored my TR4A in the mid-80's, the belt on my car shredded itself (apparently I had used a new belt that had been sitting around too long - NOS perhaps). I had also heard that pantyhose worked so I cleverly asked my girlfriend for her pantyhose which proceeded to slip no matter how tight we made them.

We ended up getting a ride into the closest town and actually found an auto parts store open til 8pm which had a TR4 fan belt.

Scott (playing the part of Mythbusters today)
 
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