Lots of responses here to pop out that plug and put the original TR-4 style
road tube back on. But . . . on the other hand PCV valves are a good thing,
and that is how that valve cover and block combination were meant to be
configured.
There is indeed a down side to road tubes...well, several actually...to go
with the up sides. The ups would be the simplicity and originality. The
downs would include less ventilation of the crankcase (particularly at low
speeds), you will ALWAYS get at least a drop or two from the road tube after
shutdown, and you get to contribute to maintaining the oil level in the
asphalt of the public roads upon which you travel.
A story about road tubes (sorry, it is long). All of my TR-4s have road
tubes, not a PCV valve in the bunch. But going back to shortly after
getting my first TR-4. I was checking the oil very regularly (I was only
new to TR-4s, I had been a Triumph driver a long time), and for the first
time I noted that the oil level was down a tad, about half way between the
two marks on the dipstick. Ah..says I, it must be about a half quart low.
So in goes a half quart of 20W-50 Castrol GTX. This did little to raise the
level on the dip stick. So I started thinking that maybe the marks on this
stick were two quarts apart, and besides, I needed to get going so as not to
be late for work. So in goes another quart. Now the dipstick shows right
at full, good deal, time to roll. Well, part way to work is this awesome
lowspeed 90 degree right turn that I had been taking at ever increasing
speeds since getting that TR-4. I was just getting up to the point were the
rear was breaking loose with the stock tires and rims.
This particular morning I took that turn at about the same speed that, the
day before, had kicked the rear out a bit, but not badly. But on this
morning I entered the corner, felt the rear start to kick out, and became a
passenger. Nothing I tried worked to recover in that corner. Around came
the rear, all the way around. Ended up backwards, on the burm on the inside
of the corner. No harm, no foul, no damage, but very confused. When my
passenger and I got out of the vehicle (my passenger took a few seconds to
get out, he sat there slowly clapping at my performance for a bit) we
noticed a sheen in a fan shape on the road surface, that started between my
tire marks, with my inside rear tire mark passing over it. Turns out this
sheen was oil. Castrol GTX 20W-50 as it turns out. A check of the dipstick
now showed the oil level to be a quart above full.
I surmise that the over full oil pan allowed the oil to slop up the left
side of the inside of the crankcase in that hard right turn, and spill out
the road tube. Possibly even squirting out under a bit of pressure, as the
motor does have some noticeable blowby. Right in front of my inside rear
tire, as the rear end was starting to kick out. I was able to repeat this
at will in a hard right turn in a parking lot at work later that day. Hard
right turn, rear end goes away, look for the oil on the surface.
Sooooo. . .another good reason not to overfill the oil. Maybe the manual
righters did know something afterall....
Darrell, in the High Desert of California
62 TR-4 CT 5368 LO (daily driver)
62 TR-4 CT 10440 L
62 TR-4 CT 13108 L (long term project)
65 Spit FC 51603 L
67 Spit FD 2890 L (daughters car)
77 Spit FM 62888 UC (other daily driver)
79 Spit FM 98233 UC (wifes car)
_________________________________________________________________
///
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
/// with nothing in it but
///
/// unsubscribe triumphs
///
///
|