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Wedge Nice TR8 on ebay

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Mickey Richaud

Mickey Richaud

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Looks like a really clean low mileage car. His buy it now price is a little on the high side, but he might still get it. There are not too many cars left with such low mileage. I noticed a couple of things that concern me. He has two oil fill caps mounted directly to the valve covers. One of those is suppose to be a breather. When mounted without the riser tube, the rockers can make contact with the oil fill cap. He does have a small breather mounted to the vacuum nipple at the back of the valve cover. This is not sufficient. These motors develop some serious crankcase pressure when run hard. The other thing I noticed is no heater hoses coming off of the back of the manifold. Could be dealing with the dreaded heater control valve leak in behind the dashboard. I still know of a pretty clean Persian Aqua one with a 4.9 pushing 300 plus HP that can be had for less than his buy it now price.
 
Yeah - I noticed the "dual oil filler cap option" also. You're right about the crankcase pressure. Until I got my breather hoses routed, steam was pouring out of the engine.

Didn't catch the heater hoses missing. Might also be they couldn't figure out how to route them, with the Edelbrock.
 
tr8todd said:
The other thing I noticed is no heater hoses coming off of the back of the manifold. Could be dealing with the dreaded heater control valve leak in behind the dashboard.
Click to expand...

Other than disconnecting the hose and living with no heat (OK in SoCal 90% of the time) as a work around, how do you fix this?
 
My control valve was leaking, and the previous owner simply bypassed it - no heat. I have a new valve, and am thinking of installing it on the firewall for easier access. Pulling the dash and console just to get to the valve isn't my idea of fun!

Another option is to install a manual valve like early TR's, and simply opening it when you want the heater to operate.
 
You can lay on your back and reach up to change it, but you have to be a contortionist. The valve is held in place with rivets that need to be drilled out. The toughest part in the hose clamps. If you cannot get to the screw, you have to cut them off to remove the hoses. In my opinion, I would rather remove the dash to get at it. I have removed a ton of them before, so I know where all of the screws are. I can R&R the dash in a couple of hours. I'm getting too old and fat to be laying up under the dash anyway. Getting at the clutch master bolts is about all I can handle now.
 
TR8TODD, got a question for you, I too have a small breather on mny valve cover nipple, never had any trouble with crank case pressure, please tell me why this is bad and what I should do instead.. thanks
 
Passenger side valve cover should have a breather at the front. It has a large black hose that leeds to a Y and then into the sides of the carbs. The drivers side should have the oil fill and riser at the front. At the rear, there is a breather nipple. It has a small bore because it is attached to a vacuum port on the drivers side carb. It first travels thru a one way check and the charcoal canister mounted where the TR7 battery tray is. The small nipple requires a vacuum in order to do it's job. The other breather has a larger bore and doesn't require much vaccum at all. The Rover V8 develops alot of crankcase pressure. A simple breather that is not hooked to a vacuum may not be enough if the motor sees sustained high RPMs.

One time I was caravaning with Woody and a couple of other TR8s up to Stowe. We stopped at a rest area just inside Vt. The fella who was with me(he is a police officer) could not find his wallet when we got back to our cars. Everybody took off and left my friend and I to look for the wallet. 15 minutes later, we found it between the seat and the rocker. It was 6 AM on a Sunday morn. The other guys had a 15 minute head start and they drive fast. We had some serious catching up to do. I don't want to say how fast we were traveling, but we caught up to them in less than 20 minutes. Let's just say even the early speedo's don't go that high. Well long story short, when we got to Stowe, my engine had oil all over it because of the breather set up I had. My car happened to be for sale that weekend, and the police officer I was with, wrote me a check for the car the following Monday. His brother still owns that TR8. So, if you ever decide to unleash the car's potential, you better have a breather hooked up to a vacuum port.
 
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