I'll try to explain this so it makes some sense (no gaurentee's expresed or
implied). When I got my current MGA the PO's DM (dumb mechanic) had talked
him into putting a header on this car. You may think this is good, but the
rub is they used an MGB header and bashed the center branch in a bit to get
around the steering column. This caused enough of a restriction that car
couldn't get up and get out of it's own way. So when one of our local
garages was having a special on a proper MGA header I picked one up. Now
the car runs great! But now I've gone from a few drips of oil to I can't
believe I'm leaking that much oil. The vast majority is coming from the
front tappet cover were the breather tube comes out of. I tried replacing
the gasket and got the oil leak down to the point were the EPA doesn't need
to be called in anymore, but it's still ugly. What looks like is happening
is that the breather pipe is rubbing against the header and the extra
vibration and presure on the cover is scewing up the seal. So as I see it
have two, well three options. #1 - bend the breather pipe so it isn't tap
dancing with the header. #2 - buy a stock exhaust manifold and exhaust
system. #3 - now this one is a stretch, use a MGB front tappet cover that
has the breather that comes up and runs to the carbs, this car has an
aluminum valve cover without the breather pipe so running it to the front
carb is no problem.
Anybody got any other suggestions or comments? I only want to tear this
thing down one more time, I'm really sick and tired of this whole mess!
TIA, Lane
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