Yesterday(Sunday), a few of us had a chance to temporarily rescue a fellow
AHSTC clubmember's Sprite. Dave Marvel has had the Sprite since 1967 and
it's a 1964(I think). If you look in your Austin-Healey Illustrated
Buyer's Guide and turn to the Sprite MkIII section, that's Dave's car in
the pictures and him sitting in the driver's seat.
5 years ago Dave complained of a severe oil leak from the rear of the
engine. We've been on a real Sprite and big Healey fixing kick, so we
decided at Encounter to pick up the car this weekend. Ray Donovan, Steve
Kirlin, Al Tocci, and I drove down to Springfield with Paul Woglom and his
trailer. After we pushed the car onto the trailer, we grabbed a bite to
eat, then headed back to the "Clubhouse" in Lansdale to just drop the car off.
But, of course, we couldn't just "drop it off". We had to find that leak -
Al and I suspected the oil pump and backing plate on this 1098. So we put
the car up on the lift to check it out. Yep, around the backing plate.
We figured we'd have to pull the engine. While it's in the air, we then
figured we just loosen everything and start draining fluids. Every
imaginable container was used, including a missing glass pie plate
someone's wife had been looking for! The Sprite was then lowered and all
top fixin's were removed. We thought about grabbing one of Paul's
forklifts to pull the engine ala junkyard style, but talked ourselves out
of it. OK, well, the afternoon is ticking away, we better head home and
get some other stuff done.
But, of course, we couldn't just "leave it in the car for later in the
week". Out the engine came using the real engine hoist and a cheap
Jap-crap engine tilt piece of junk. But, we didn't foul on the heater box
or front lip bodywork!! The engine was lowered to a dolly and by the
miracle of air tools the backing plate was removed(after the tranny and
flywheel business). Now, it's just a matter of finding what was causing
the oil leak, but that's for another email....
Jason.
| http://www.austin-healey-stc.org/ |
| http://www.caverge.com |
| '65 Austin-Healey Sprite and '59 100/6 |
| '96 Land Rover Disco '95 Range Rover LWB |
| |
|