Get out your hankies folks, it's a sad one!
As you know, I started up the brand new motor, and discovered a
bad oil
leak at the rear gallery plug, necessitating a pull of the transmission.
Used form-a-gasket and reinstalled all the plugs. Restarted the motor on
Saturday. Still leaking. Crap.
Soooo, pulled the tranny AGAIN. This time, my guess was that the
plug itself was
bad. Then, a flash of insight. Some quick work with the trusty calipers,
and voila!
problem found (I think).
It turns out that the oil plugs in the 6 were originally
tapered, like a pipe
plug. The plugs I installed are straight, like a bolt. I trashed several
of the
original plugs when I disassembled the motor, but kept them around. I
compared
them to a spare new one I also had laying around.
I had ordered all new plugs from Moss, but my trusty LBC
mechanic told me
he cancelled the order because the machine shop would put in new plugs
for me. Well,
they didn't. So I went to the hardware store and picked up a set of
plugs off the
shelf, rather than wait a week for stuff from Moss to show up so I could
reassemble
the motor.
I now think that was bad mojo. There were no pipe thread plugs
available in
the small sizes needed (not that I realized they needed be pipe thread,
either).
I only know they were not available because I checked for pipe thread,
and found
none. My conclusion at the time was that if no small pipe plug was
available,
straight plugs must be what was required.
So now I am waiting for my LBC to get in a shipment of properly
sized plugs.
He had some plugs on the shelf, but wasn't sure if they were tapered or
not. To add
to the confusion, the British name is "grub screw", which to me implies
a straight
thread.
See? It's not my fault! I'm a victim I tell you, a VICTIM!!! I
was an abused child,
my therapist lied to me, I have bad genes!!! A victiiiimmmm!!!!
Waiting to get plugged,
Vance
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