• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Oil From Clutch Housing

Share this page

Randy Forbes said:
It's okay, it's your nature.

Tell you what, IF I start to get a drip from the bellhousing, I'll use my borescope to examine the inside of the bellhousing to see where it's coming from.

In the meantime, I'd strongly urge everyone that reads this forum to disregard EVERYTHING I've said or posted pictures of.

In the future only listen to Bob Spidell's advice. He's clearly the master; he's read a book.
Click to expand...


That's uncalled for, Randy. Refute my argument/opinion if you like, but don't take your ball and go home. I suspect you're a better man than this reply indicates.

All you had to say was you think copper washers will work fine in this application, and will not cause the bolts to work loose--yes, it would probably take many thousands of hard miles if they did--or that you've used copper washers many times in stressed applications with no problems. I would have respected your opinion and experience.

I quoted Carroll Smith because I believe he is (was) a credible source--a chassis builder of some renown, and his reasoning makes sense to me. If anyone knows otherwise, or has a better source, then please post.
 
I hate it when Mommy and Daddy argue!
 
Healey friends:

I have struggled with leaks at the rear of my Healey engine for years. I don't think they can be stopped, there are just too many sources for oil that gets out and ultimately drips down through the bell housing drain. I have managed to stop the major leaks, but my car continues to leave a 1 or 2" diameter spot when parked after a long run. Hey, it's a Healey, that is their nature.

FWIW, I don't think leaking from the front my BN1 transmission has been much of a contributor. Whenever I pull the transmission, the transmission side of the bell housing is always quite dry, don't think it would be if there were oil getting out of the tranny.
 
Michael Oritt said:
I hate it when Mommy and Daddy argue!
Click to expand...
From the looks of the photos posted by Randy it appears that there's 8 copper washers needed. I think when I put my car back together I'll rob my piggy bank and give it a try.
My "8 cents" worth.
Patrick
 
Patrick67BJ8 said:
From the looks of the photos posted by Randy it appears that there's 8 copper washers needed. I think when I put my car back together I'll rob my piggy bank and give it a try.
My "8 cents" worth.
Patrick
Click to expand...


Make sure the pennies were minted prior to 1982.
 
Sorry Randy, I'm gong to have to side with Bob on this one. As a racer, using synthetic oils that can find places to leak from places that do not even exist, I have had much experience with fasteners, sealants, gaskets, copper and aluminum washers, and a lot of other stuff that qualifies me to wade in here.
For the transmission bolts, I would dip the bolt threads into that black aviation permatex goo (I can't remember the # right now) and then, using a steel flat washer under the head I would screw the bolt in and nip it up tight. The thread sealant will keep it from leaking and the torque/stretch on the bolt will keep the bolt from coming loose. Lock washers are useless. If you do not tighten the bolt enough, a lock washer will never stop it from coming loose. Having said that, more problems arise from over tightening bolts then from not.
Sorry Randy, I really like what you have done and your contributions to this forum. But, copper and aluminum washers are considered "crush" washers and might not be the best for bolting the bellhousing to the transmission.
 
If using copper washers in that application was an original idea, then it wasn't a recent one.

They were discovered when I removed the bellhousing from my center-shift xmsn.

I pulled it off because I was having trouble figuring out how to get the clutch fulcrum pin out of my side shift bellhousing; I couldn't tell on which direction the retaining pin was tapered.

The bolts in the c/s bellhousing were still tight, and I last overhauled that box in 1986. I don't specifically remember putting them in at that time, but there's nobody else I can blame.

So if the (new) copper washers I recently installed allow the bolts to remain torqued to spec for <span style="font-style: italic">only</span> twenty-four plus (24+) years, I'll just have to live with that.

Granted Richard, this car doesn't see the horsepower and stress load that it would in your (or Carrol Smith's) application, but I think it will do fine for me.

We'll see, but no drips yet, not even from my non-sealed input shaft nor crankshaft (both are reverse scroll).
 
Okay, now we have another data point. Copper--or aluminum--flatwashers in a stressed application may be OK for a street car, but wouldn't be a good idea in a racer. Anyone following this thread can learn, and decide for themselves.

Anyone should feel free to post a comment or opinion--this is, after all, a forum. If you don't agree with someone, say so--with respect (Dave Russell was a master). Personal attacks are unnecessary (and against the forum rules).
 
The bell housing-to-tranny bolts have a different force exerted on them than say the head studs or the aluminum shock bodies. It is more of a shear load on the bell housing bolts that is buffered by the motor and tranny's rubber mounts. So less of a shock to the washers than the other components I mentioned and in a different direction. I believe that side loads would be less prone to compressing a softer washer and loosening the bolt than a up and down sudden motion.
 
I was thinking the opposite. The engine, bell housing and transmission/OD are basically suspended between the front and rear mounts. Seems to me that would put a bit of tension on the bellhousing bolts (especially the lower ones when stopped). I'll bet if you could film the drive train with high-speed cameras you'd see the whole drive train oscillating up and down, varying tension between the upper and lower bolts of the bellhousing (not unlike that exerted on a head stud/bolt, but at a lower frequency of course).
 
Bob_Spidell said:
<span style="font-weight: bold">I was thinking the opposite.</span> The engine, bell housing and transmission/OD are basically suspended between the front and rear mounts. Seems to me that would put a bit of tension on the bellhousing bolts (especially the lower ones when stopped). I'll bet if you could film the drive train with high-speed cameras you'd see the whole drive train oscillating up and down, varying tension between the upper and lower bolts of the bellhousing (not unlike that exerted on a head stud/bolt, but at a lower frequency of course).
Click to expand...
If it was even worth the trouble, it would be more cost effective to quantify <span style="font-style: italic">your theory </span>using strain-gauges than a video, not to mention less expensive and easier to apply as well.

I don't think there's as much fastener stretch as you do, or all those bolts would be falling out.
 
Patrick

What does a PCV valve look like and do, is it just a oneway valve ?
I am in the UK any idea who stocks them.

Rob
 
chicken said:
Patrick

What does a PCV valve look like and do, is it just a oneway valve ?
I am in the UK any idea who stocks them.

Rob
Click to expand...
I don't know what they look like(no pictures available on my computer), but British Car Specialist has them.
209.948-8767
www.britishcarspecialist.com
Patrick
 
PCV explained
Here is a photo from Lin's site of one installed. It is in between the hose from the intake manifold and the "T" junction on the valve cover. Lin has modified that hose which originally went to the air filter instead of the manifold.
PCV%20Valve.JPG

You can get generic PCV valves at almost any auto parts store.
 
chicken said:
Patrick
:savewave:
What does a PCV valve look like: It looks like the picture provided below. and do,
:savewave:
What it does is invert the crankcase pressure by this I mean it will tranform Positive crankcase pressure into a negative value.Which minimises the engines tendency to leak oil at the joints.
is it just a oneway valve ?
:savewave:
Basically yes. However, each engine requires a unique valve. The Late Norman Nock has specified the correct valve for the Healey engine.
I am in the UK any idea who stocks them.--Talk to the "Spares" guys

Rob
Click to expand...
:cheers:---Keoke
 
Patrick,

Nothing too special about the PCV value. I ordered mine from BCS. The part number cross references to:

FV112 - FRAM
CV697C - AC Delco
PV679 - Purolator
66014 - Wix
PV03 - Champion
2-9281 - NAPA

Or if you were like me when I had to replace mine, just tell the counter worker that you have a '67 Camaro 327 (4bl), or same year/engine Corvette.

If you go the to Fram web site, they have a look up for competitor parts. You can enter any of these part numbers in the site and find many more cross references. Over here these are $2.99.

https://www.framcatalog.com/PartDetailWindow.aspx?b=F&pn=FV112

Dean
 
GregW said:
PCV explained
Here is a photo from Lin's site of one installed. It is in between the hose from the intake manifold and the "T" junction on the valve cover. Lin has modified that hose which originally went to the air filter instead of the manifold.
PCV%20Valve.JPG

You can get generic PCV valves at almost any auto parts store.
Click to expand...
What about the hose for the brake servo on a BJ8?
Patrick
 
As a side note to the PCV discussion, note that the PCV valve is a controlled vacuum leak and will cause the rear cylinders to run leaner. I had compensated for this by enrichening the rear carb a little, but I was doing some tuning with Colortunes this weekend and discovered how much the PCV valve would cause leaning in the rear cylinders; I could not get the rear carb to run rich at idle, even with the jet lowered completely. At that, the mixture was only slightly rich off-idle. I'm going to put a rich needle in the rear carb and see if that helps normalize things a bit.

FWIW, while I was testing I put a clamp on the hose into the manifold; I immediately got oil bubbling out from under the valve cover and a massive puddle under the bellhousing. Fortunately, it appears my clutch is still OK.
 
Bob,

So far my experience has been the same. No oil leaks, but very mixed performance. When I removed the rear plugs and they are noticeably lean. The car is harder to start and backfires off the throttle, so much so that the last time I started it I flooded the number 2 cylinder - something that in the last 15 years has never occured.

I very carefully sealed the dip stick and oil fill cap (aluminum cover) to keep unmetered air to a minimum. Before I completely sealed the dip stick, I could hear the air rushing in through the dip stick tube and bubbling through the oil in the pan after I immediately shut off the engine - I kid you not. My engine is reasonable fresh and seems to pull a tremendous vacuum.

This weekend replaced the PCV hoping that maybe it was not fully seating. I was thinking about installing a metering restricter but what size orifice? If I can't sort out the tuning, I'll happily deal with the rear oil leak. The last thing I want to do is melt the number 5-6 piston all in an attempt to save a few drips on the oil pan.

I suppose another option is to buy the rest of the parts that are engineered to work with this PCV part number, but that would entail installing a small block 327 :smile:

Dean
 
Back
Top