lack of oil.

S

Steve C

Member
Hello, an other little query i have ref oil under the rocker cover, yesterday just out of interest i removed both rocker covers, and was a little surprised to find very little oil on the head, the rockers and shaft were covered in what looked like dirty old dried out oil. this did not look good. ran the engine on tick over and no oil was appearing from any where.

Question is can i remove the 4 bolts that hold the rocker shaft, lift up the whole assembly, and get to any sort of oil passage etc, to try and clean /un block them, or is this a no no?

Second question, still related to oil, a few days a go my oil pressure gauge just stopped working i have earthed out the wire to it and got a full deflection of the gauge, from what i have read this tells me its the transmitter that has packed up, i have been looking at the transmitter for a while and cant see for the life of me how to get at it with out removing the whole oil pump assembly, my oil warning light still works, so its not a desperate immediate problem.

any advise or help would be great. regard Steve
 
at tickover you wont see much oil, ive run engines on our dyno with valve covers removed its only once you get to about 3000 rpm things start getting messy. but you could unbolt the rockers and check oil comes up the feed holes, but spinning it over on the starter again wont bring much oil up. might be better to pull the distributor and spin the oil pump over with an electric drill, even then you dont see much oil come up and thats on a healthy engine.

pressure transducer is a pain to get to, but i usually manage it after removing just the oil filter
 
Undo all four of the bolts a bit at a time - don't take one completely out with the others tight.

The oil comes out of this hole marked at the front of the head

oilway1.JPG

The oil pressure transmitter can be removed with a bit of faffing, but careful you don't smack the rad with a spanner :oops:

There is a hex at the back of it to get a spanner on - this pic is with the radiator out, ignore the fan, that isn't there as standard :)

pressure.JPG
 
Try to find a piece of 2-3mm nylon tubing (bendy, but still a bit rigid, not floppy like silicon), sand or file the end to round it, to stop the edge snagging, and try to feed it down into the block - there is an angle change IIRC at the joint. Also check that the front rocker pedestal is clean inside, as the oil goes up around the bolt and into the rocker shaft. While you have the whole assembly off the head, slide some rockers sideways against the springs and check for wear on the shaft on the underside - you might get an unpleasant surprise - I did with my 74, replaced the rockers and shafts. I ran 2 SD1's to 100k miles, with regular oil changes, and the rockers were all clean and oil wet at the end, no sludge or deposits.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top