Oil should be INSIDE the engine...

[roscoe]

We will all miss Dave Russell. This is just the sort of odd ball post Dave probably would have been all over, and I'd have my answer before the next sunrise.

I was taking a short trip to the local farmers market, I have a long driveway and as I pulled out onto the road I got a wiff of burning oil. Good pressure, no smoke, kept driving but with that heightened sense of impending disaster. In a hundred yards I saw the oil pressure needle bounce up and down about 40 psi. Made a bat-turn and got back to the barn ok, but golly, what a trail of oil all the way back. Well, I had oil dripping off the back of the engine /gearbox area, oil on the firewall corresponding to the split line between the block and the head. The suspense was killing me. We're going to a holiday dinner shortly and I HAD TO KNOW if I was looking at pulling the engine or something more minor. To make a short story even shorter, there is a tapered brass plug on the rear side of the block, left side, near the top. It is an oil gallery plug (not available from Moss, by the way). Yes, it was gone, along with most of my oil. I had just made a post a while ago about maybe cranking down my oil pressure a bit. I think that I was a tad tardy on that one. It was chilly today and my pressure hit 70 at start-up. Must have popped right then. There was a puddle just outside the barn where I stopped to get out and close the door. Does anybody know a source for these. I have a used one from another block, but I'm thinking new might be better, and I want a hand full of spares. Also, why a tapered plug in this spot? Thanks for any input.

 

[retroRob]

Try here:
https://www.victoriabritish.com/features/ah/AHYearsCovered.htm

Good luck, let us know how you make out.

 

[roscoe]

Thanks,
I've looked in VB as well. No luck. In my world there is a place where they sell only brass tapered plugs of all sizes..If I could only find it. I did get a few hits from Google and I'll try BCS on Monday. Even if I find it, I know I'm gonna be nervous about this one for a while. Has this happened to anyone else? I would think that the plug should be able to withstand at least 100 psi for it to be plenty secure. I twisted the used one out of my spare block with a small vise-grips, it wasn't too hard.

 

[neilert]

Do you have photos or measurements of the plug that you could post? It may be simple to reproduce.

 

[Randy Forbes]

Post a picture, and I'll probably suggest drilling/tapping the port and using a threaded plug.

 

[anthony7777]

randy, it is cast iron we are talking about right?, well then you are a brave, talented, and handsome man randy forbes!

 

[Randy Forbes]

randy, it is cast iron we are talking about right?, well then you are a brave, talented, and handsome man randy forbes!

Yes, all of the above (good thing you didn't say tall...).

Seriously though, cast iron is not difficult to tap, actually, it's quite easy. Tap c/i dry though, no cutting oil.

Depending on the size of the hole, I know you can get tapered threaded plugs down to 1/8", possibly even 1/16" NPT.

 

[Healey 100]

I am familiar with this plug. I sent my BN1 engine to the machinist without the plug and it came back with some other plug in there, not the correct size. I took it out and put the original back in.

I think there is an odd Whitworth thread on this plug. However, you can probably jam something close (like a male 3/8 pipe thread plug from Home Despot) in there and have it work. Just clean the hole and coat the threads liberally with JB Weld first.

I doubt if your 70 psi oil pressure popped this plug. 70 psi isn't much load on a plug this size. More likely at some point it was put in finger tight and forgotten. Then it finally vibrated out.

ps look around your driveway, you might manage to find the plug, it's not all that small.

 

[red57]

I am not familiar with the 4 cylinder but the six cylinder motors have tapered brass plugs that are driven in, no threads. On every 6 I have rebuilt we take the tapered plug out to clean and flush the oil galleries and drill/tap for pipe plugs. Easy to do (as Randy says) and makes future cleaning a snap. IMHO you can't do a sucessfull rebuild without cleaning the oil galleries. In your case tapping the hole would be hard to do without taking it down to a bare block to clean the oil galleries so I would just measure the hole carefully and have someone turn a brass plug in a lathe the right diamiter and drive it in - needs to be a very tight press fit and when you 'set' it with a hammer it will swell a bit and conform to any irregularities in the hole.

Dave Phillips

 

[Michael Oritt]

Jon--

The same thing happened to me about five years back: I started my 100 on a particularly cold day and backed out of the garage to see an oil track in the snow. I quickly shut down the engine and ultimately found the little brass plug on the garage floor in a puddle of oil. I put the plug in a vise and deformed it a bit to increase its diameter, removed the vertical transmission cover and drove the plug home with a long piece of rod, then peened the edge to the block.

I don't think you will have any problem using the spare plug--you might want to anneal it to soften it up prior to use. I can't tell you why they did not fill the gallery holes properly and if and when I ever pull my engine this is on the list of things to take care of in a proper manner.

 

[roscoe]

Thanks to you all. I have replaced the plug. I had had my block hot tanked and cleaned prior to rebuilding and I know the the oil galleries were cleaned. The plug was out and re-used. I built the engine up and never gave the plug a second thought. I annealed the spare I had and installed it just as Michael did. I did find the plug that came out, in a puddle of oil. I found one outfit on line , in Germany, that sells the plug. I have put over 1200 miles on it since the rebuild. I agree that any plug worth it's salt should be able to withstand 100psi if it is designed to run at 50 to 60 normally. I'm pretty lucky that it happened where it did in that I had last driven it to work on the interstate. I had a good chuckle with a friend who rebuilt an MGTD and had the banjo fitting on the carburetor come undone (the whole core fell out while he was driving) yet he did not catch fire, but only came to a stop on the freeway shoulder. I'll take an oil bath over a gasoline shower any day.

 

[Cottontop]

Referring to the title, what the heck kind of British engine has ALL of the oil on the inside ?

NOT any that I've ever owned....

How do you tell when they need more oil ? They stop dripping !

Tim