We all spend time grousing about our british cars' habit of leaking
everywhere. Moaning about leaking oil seals and what to do about them. I
think we should accept the fact that they were designed to leak this way and
for a reason.
I was chatting with a guy at the office who spent some time working on
lorries in Britain. He recalled the first time he looked at the machinery
and having seen a largish oil tank with lots of pipes heading out of it. He
asked what the thing was for and was told that the piping all led to
"lubricators" i.e. drip points located over the universal joints and
bearings. As the truck rolled along there was a steady drip drip of oil
pouring on the active suspension components. I guess the amount of rain in
the UK washes out the bearings.
I think that when it came to building a consumer car, the lubricator system
was just too expensive so they just made everything leak to compensate for
it's normal activity.
I vaguely seem to remember hearing of such a setup from another source, but
would love to hear some confirmation from our UK brethren. For all I know
it's standard in North America too, however I haven't seen too many puddles
around commercial trucks here.
Mark Hooper
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