I am happy to report that the oil pressure light on my TR7 works
quite nicely. I had worried about this in the past, but I have
absolutely confirmed its proper functioning.
One of the endearing traits of this little car is its impeccable
sense of timing. For instance, in the early days of my ownership,
the car waited until I cleaned out the trunk and neglected to restore
the tire iron to its proper place before notifying me that some of
the lug nuts were not properly tightened.
A good demonstration of timing would be to wait until I cleaned the
trunk out and left my weekend abode without replacing the auxilary oil
tanks (little quart containers of oil) and other various extra supplies
before allowing the oil light flash on. I spotted this symptom yesterday
coming into my Baltimore home, but waited for the temperature to peak
this afternoon before doing anything about it. After letting the car
sit a day, I took the car to the nearest service station to toss back
a couple of pints (of oil).
Which leads me to a minor digression. One of the good qualities of
my rough little neighborhood was the NAPA store (an auto parts chain
store) 2 blocks from my front door. I always thought this was a
good thing, even though I have sympathized with anti-NAPA gripes in
the past. Well, my first trip in today's fine 95/95 (heat and humidity)
was on foot to the NAPA store, and these people had the nerve to have
*closed* (permanently) without asking my opinion or even bothering to
let me know. (What I'm not a good enough customer?! How much money
*can* you throw at a car?) I'm never shopping there again!
So, I poured in two (U.S.) quarts of oil at the Exxon that I normally
avoid (I still haven't forgiven them for Valdez). And I wiped up the
oil on the dipstick and poked it into the tank and -violet!- absolutely
no sign of oil. No where. Thinking that maybe a heat-induced hallucination
had caused me to pour the oil somewhere other than inside the engine I
checked the ground and saw nary a drop of oil. Curious.
An observation I made my on the way from their trashcan to the car - in
retrospect this qualifies as a Very Bad Sign - was a sort of spray of oily
droplets of some sort all over the rear valence of the car. Knowing the
many odd habits of my neighbors I did not particularly ascribe this to any
failing of *my* automobile. Self-delusion is a powerful thing. A quick
check did not reveal any excess of oil on the ground beneath the car.
I was not prepared to pay filling station prices for any more oil. I
crossed my fingers - I knew there were at least two quarts of oil in
the engine - and made the trek to Western Auto (another auto parts
chain store) that is perhaps 10 blocks from home. When I think about it,
living in the "living" part of a city is pretty convenient. Anyone who
owns a Triumph uses oil so I thought I would invest in a case of Castrol
GTX, use a little, and put the rest in the oil cellar. ("Ah, I remember
'94 20W50. A fine year - just look at the color - the market was
saturated and case of good oil could be had for an excellent price.")
I returned home with the bigger hammer (12 quarts of oil) with which
I would attempt to solve my low oil problems. I promptly put in another
two quarts of oil into the engine. This makes a grand total of 4 quarts
of oil poured into the engine. A TR7 doesn't take a whole lot more oil
than this - this is not an Alfa Romeo oil sump - so I was now truly
concerned. Again, a check of the ground revealed only a minor dribble of
an oil stain.
I thought that maybe if I started the engine and circulated the oil a
bit I could get something to happen. Good idea, bad result. I ran the car
for about 30 seconds and cut the engine. Pulled the dipstick, which was
covered with clean oil, cleaned it, and re-checked the oil. Not a trace.
Looked on the ground and ...
Wow. Look at all of that oil there. Lots of oil. Maybe not as bad as the
Valdez (have I become like Exxon?) - but as a percent of total oil carrying
capacity a pretty strong effort. Yuck.
I walk to work. Or ride my bike. I'm glad of this
...
...
You know, I live maybe three miles from Camden Yards and they had a rain
delay tonight and there wasn't a drop of rain here.
<sigh>
Gregory Fieldson fieldson@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
Department of Chemical Engineering -- The Johns Hopkins University
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