Fluid Retention Issues...No Surprise at my Age...
I've recently had to face two examples of absolute stupidity on my part. Both involve critical engine fluids. I'll start with fuel.
I recently filled up my trunk mounted fuel cell and drove straight home. You can see what I missed in this picture:
The filter left of the gas cap, is supposed to vent any fuel cell pressure and features a check ball, so that if one gets upside down, fuel won't run out. I thought that meant that fuel won't run out when upright. I was sadly mistaken. So, when I arrived home, gasoline started weeping out of the filter. I mopped it up and thought that was the end of it. I was further mistaken.
A few hours later, I peered under BB. Note: if one owns a British roadster, one will find it peeing on the garage floor every so often. Regardless of powertrain installed. There was an alarming gas puddle forming. I was baffled until it came to me: The fitting under that filter has a neck that goes about 3/4" below the fuel cell ceiling. So, if one fills the fuel cell to the top, the neck is in the gas. Should the sun shine on the trunk, unusual but not impossible in Ohio, the gas will evaporate, raise the pressure, and blow liquid gas out through the filter. Clear in retrospect, but I missed that entirely!
So, I invested in a solution: the Vapor Trapper! It looks like this on the workbench:
No more gas puddle, which is a very good thing!
Mom, do not read this paragraph!
As I was gazing at the raw gas dripping out of the floor of the trunk, I realized that it was dripping onto the exhaust pipe! There is a stain there, so this has been going on for a bit. It seems that, at every fill up, some gas would weep out of the vent filter, run under the steel strap, that holds the fuel cell down, and slowly drip from the puddle onto the exhaust pipe, through a screw that originally held up the MG gas tank. This is very bad. Fortunately, this is the back end of the exhaust, so it was cool enough that no fire erupted! At least I won't have that strange smell at every fill up anymore!
Second amazing screw up: at the track night at mid-Ohio, I was braking hard into turn 4, right after the long back straight, when a cloud of smoke poured out from under the car! This is unnerving! It quickly faded so I continued without issue. After the session, I observed that oil had shot out of my open Positive Crank Case Ventilation port and dripped down on the exhaust header. I was confused but remembered that I had "slightly" over-filled BB after the engine rebuild.
In my defense: I poured in the recommended amount of oil (although I trusted Google) and the dip stick is hard to read. Somehow, pushing it down the tube seems to smear oil along its length. So, after the rebuild, I knew I couldn't get a clean reading but I had put in the recommended amount so how far off could I be?
Well, I kept thinking about the smoke at Mid-Ohio and the fact the oil pressure gauge had developed a habit of fluctuating, and decided to empty out some oil. I figured on a half pint or so. By the way, this really fun, One pulls the oil pan plug, allowing Pennsylvania's finest to run down your arm to the elbow. One guesses how much oil to let out and reinstalls the plug. That would be fine if it was once or twice. I did two events and could see no change of oil level on the dip stick. I became concerned that I was not getting a realistic reading. Three attempts later, I saw an actual oil level mark on the dip stick! With the final drain, I got to the top of the recommended range. The oil jug showed that I was 2 quarts high! Either I measured wrong or google was wrong. Can't believe I drove so many miles with that so far off.
As I was confident in my repairs, I decided to take BB on a business trip to Columbus for an OSU advisory board meeting. This went well! In hindsight, I think I had so many other problems with the complete rebuild of powertrain and suspension, that this is the first year I've actually had time to drive BB and get to some nuances.
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