Worries - Carb / Oil + Fuel?

[ggn06awu]

Earlybayers!

Picked up my first camper two weekends ago, I've been reading and learning ever since but I'm hoping to borrow your expertise here as I'm mildly concerned with what I'm seeing around the carb and the air filter. Essentially I can smell fuel fumes in the engine, and it seems that the air filter is damp with that, and oil.

I've taken some pictures and uploaded them here:
http://imgur.com/a/RRRtP

My questions:

1. The oil breather hose routing to the top of the carb and the air filter, that seems weird to me, is this normal?
2. The oil filler / breather must be pushing oil up that hose relatively hard to appear around the oil filter join with the carb, that can't be right can it?
3. Should I be able to smell fuel in the engine bay at all?

Running notes:

Can be grumpy starting, when warm (normal so I read).
Engine sounds ... okay I think!
Oil leak around the right hand valve cover (not got to this yet, but have the gaskets and feeler gauges to work on it now...

Any advice appreciated!

 

[Tony123]

3) check it out fuel pipe hoses , fuel pump & carb hopefully others will advise but get underneath & check pipes all the way from fuel tank through pump & to carb braided hoses are normally bad if you got them.

 

[StuF]

Another thing I would also consider changing is that airfilter - you would be better replacing it with a nice OG oil bath air filter.
Most of these old buses like to mark their spot with the odd drip of oil! Unless it gets worse I wouldnt worry too much about it, just check your levels regularly.
I consider my slight drip to be like a slow motion oil change that lasts the season!

 

[Zcat7]

When you say smells of petrol IN the engine do you mean the oil smells of petrol at the filler/breather neck? If so then its probably that your pump diaphragm has split and petrol is getting in the oil. Check the oil level to see if it is high. If this is happening then your oil will thin causing the it to vapourise more easily and hence will cause more crankcase gasses, which will find its way into the air filter.

If this is not the case I would check your compression to see if any bores are reading low. This obviously increases back pressure in the crankcase (and hence more oil in the filter) but it wouldn't account for the petrol smell. As the others say look for split hoses and if any of the cloth braided hoses are "wet".

One thing I notice from your pictures is that you have a dynamo spec fuel pump with an alternator. The alternator spec pump is canted over so that it clears the alternator body, which is wider than a dynamo. Basically you might find it a bit of a bitch to get the fuel pump off if you need to check the diaphragm! It could mean that you'll have to lift the alternator off the stand but I have a theory that if you lock 2 nuts together on the studs and extract them then you can remove it that way. Never had to do it though so don't know for sure!

 

[sharky71]

what's the springy thing fitted just above the cutoff solenoid??

oil around the airfilter is the norm,picks up vapour from the oil filler via crankcase pressure i believe,mind i have been wrong in the past but more experienced chaps will be around shortly,if it isn't the norm then i have issues :lol: :lol:

 

[Zcat7]

what's the springy thing fitted just above the cutoff solenoid??

I think it's an emission control module for US spec vehicles. Cuts the fuel on overrun.

 

[ggn06awu]

Did the compression test, and changed the plugs. First observation was the plugs were sooted black, all 4 of them (means he's running rich?). Second was the poor numbers coming from the test (at least I think these are poor?)

Cyl 1: 110
Cyl 2: 99
Cyl 3: 98 (shakes a lot more when taking this reading)
Cyl 4: 99

I've got an oil leak that seems to be coming from the back of the engine too! I've done the valve gaps, oil change, plugs, and leads. Am I stuffed and need to pull and redo the engine and the carb?