starbiscuit
Well-known member
IDK if anyone else has this problem, but our bus smells a bit fumey in the cabin after a run.
I put it down to a minor oil leak somewhere. Like a faint acrid oily smell.
After the oil leak became a gush from under the fan housing (whole sump emptied in 80 miles) I took it to Jamie at Station Garage Stortford for some help. We had a good look and decided that it was most likely the oil cooler seals or the oil cooler itself and so we set about taking the engine out.
Once the engine was out and the fan shroud off, it was clear the cooler mounting tab was bent, and that the seals were rock-hard brittle and not the right ones. They look like twin-port dog-house seals, he said, and selected what he remembered to be the factory SP seals from a selection of several different type1 engine oil seals.
Jamie repaired the mounting tab with an induction heater and some black-smith handiwork and it all went back together lovely.
But he was concerned about the soot on the fan-side of the carburettor and the underside of the alternator; that's not from the oil leak, he said, and went to get his smoke machine.
This thing burns (essentially) baby oil and uses air-line pressure to force it up the tail pipe so you can see where it leaks from.
And it was pouring out all along the area where the pre-heat pipe and the inlet manifold are joined.
So the exhaust was blowing into the engine bay, being sucked up by the fan and forced out through the cabin warm air system. Not nice.
It's probably lucky that it was smelly, making us have the windows open and warm vents shut while driving, because carbon monoxide is odourless and causes headaches in low concentrations and unconsciousness and then death in not much more. Early beetles with rusty J tubes had a reputation for poisoning occupants. We were fortunate not to have any ill-effects.
We have blanked off the pre-heat pipe for now. The bus is no worse off because there was no pre-heat effect anyway, with all the exhaust escaping.
But at least it's not trying to kill us any more :shock:
I put it down to a minor oil leak somewhere. Like a faint acrid oily smell.
After the oil leak became a gush from under the fan housing (whole sump emptied in 80 miles) I took it to Jamie at Station Garage Stortford for some help. We had a good look and decided that it was most likely the oil cooler seals or the oil cooler itself and so we set about taking the engine out.
Once the engine was out and the fan shroud off, it was clear the cooler mounting tab was bent, and that the seals were rock-hard brittle and not the right ones. They look like twin-port dog-house seals, he said, and selected what he remembered to be the factory SP seals from a selection of several different type1 engine oil seals.
Jamie repaired the mounting tab with an induction heater and some black-smith handiwork and it all went back together lovely.
But he was concerned about the soot on the fan-side of the carburettor and the underside of the alternator; that's not from the oil leak, he said, and went to get his smoke machine.
This thing burns (essentially) baby oil and uses air-line pressure to force it up the tail pipe so you can see where it leaks from.
And it was pouring out all along the area where the pre-heat pipe and the inlet manifold are joined.
So the exhaust was blowing into the engine bay, being sucked up by the fan and forced out through the cabin warm air system. Not nice.
It's probably lucky that it was smelly, making us have the windows open and warm vents shut while driving, because carbon monoxide is odourless and causes headaches in low concentrations and unconsciousness and then death in not much more. Early beetles with rusty J tubes had a reputation for poisoning occupants. We were fortunate not to have any ill-effects.
We have blanked off the pre-heat pipe for now. The bus is no worse off because there was no pre-heat effect anyway, with all the exhaust escaping.
But at least it's not trying to kill us any more :shock:
