|Date: 5-28-93 11:31am
|From: Dean Zywicki:dcrt:nih
| To: {british-cars@autox.team.net}:BITNET
|Subj: Helicoils save the day
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I was driving home from work in my midget yesterday, when I noticed
a faint smell like burning oil. I turned around and noticed lots of
white smoke coming from underneath my car. I pulled over and saw a
pretty good amount of oil coming from the vicinity of the bottom front
of the engine. I figured I had lost a decent amount of oil, so I added
the emergency quart and headed home (about 3 miles away). When I got
home I jacked the car up and saw that one of the oil pan bolts had come
out. It was one of two in the front, that go into the soft metal bar
that covers the crankshaft. I have no idea what this piece is called,
it has two small blocks of wood on the side to seal it with the block.
Anyway, the holes go directly into the sump, so when the bolt fell out,
the oil had a clear path back to it's natural state in the ground.
There was a pretty good spray, so I calmly decided what to do and
hoped that I hadn't wrecked the engine. First I decided to do something
extremely stupid. When I rebuilt the engine, I couldn't remember if I
had folded over the corners of the retaining bar on the camshaft
sprocket. So, I decided that now would be the time to check that. So,
I took out the radiator, alternator, blah, blah, blah and tried to get
the crankshaft nut off. No luck. So, I took the fuel pump off (to get
to the starter a lot easier) and wedged a wrench into the flywhell ring
gear. Luckily it caught and I got it off. Sure enough, I hadn't folded
the corners back on the cam sprocket.
Next, I found out that the threads for the oil pan bolt were
stripped. I called up Scott Paisley and he said to try a helicoil. I
had never used one before, but always wanted to see if they worked. I
paid the $19.99 and went to try it. First surprise: I couldn't drill
because the front of the oil pan lines up with the lip of the frame
cross support. I hoped that the cutter would cut through the soft
metal. Luckily it did and everything was looking good again. Next
surprise: The tool to put the helicoil in was too wide to turn becuse
the cross member of the frame was in the way. I sawed off the sides of
the plastic tool and tried again. Yeah, it worked great. I checked the
other bolt that goes into the soft metal and it was pretty well stripped
too, so I put a helicoil in there too.
Since I had the radiator out and I was thinking about putting an
electric fan on there, I decided now would be the time. The fan fits
great and I hope it works better than the old belt driven one. It
certainly moves more air through by the quick test I made.
I have to finish putting everything back together today nad
hopefully it will be good to go for this weekend.
Dean
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