Russ jumped on the bandwagon:
> >Denise sez:
> >>
> >>Someone (the aforementioned Pat, late of Octagon) told me (Have you noticed
> >>that people are always telling me things?) that if the oil in an MGB engine
> >>is below halfway between full and add, then the cam isn't getting any
> >>lubrication.
>
>
> Will Z. responded:
>
> >Zowie. There are a lot of people who know more than I do about this but I
> >have a really hard time beliveing this one.
>
>
> Will -
> You're right on. I was hoping someone else would check Denise on this one
> (I have to be nice if there's to be any hope of borrowing tools from her).
HAH! No tools for YOU!
> If the oil pickup tube is in the soup then it obivously doesn't matter how
> deep the oil is - it's deep enough. Oil pressure will be produced and all
> parts of the lubricating system will share it. You just can't pressurize
> only part of the system.
I'll have to hunt down the aforementioned Pat, late of Octagon and ask him
_why_ he said this seemingly silly thing. Maybe it was to frighten me into
keeping oil in the MG 1100 he sold me for $600 nine years ago. Of course,
he was the one who told me when I bought the car that the engine was going
to blow up any day now. This is the car that lives in front of my house
without moving every 72 hours, has two speedo cables, contains the control
battery for the "battery on concrete" experiment, and is the only MG 1100
every year at British Car Day and never wins the "Best Beater" award.
> My '63 B leaks dreadfully too, and the oil level often gets down to the
> point of barely wetting the end of the dip stick - 2 quarts low - before I
> catch it, but there is still normal pressure, so it can't hurt. It's just
> risky to have so little reserve.
I have the ultimate low oil story. I once drove the aforementioned '63 MG
1100 for a year with it three quarts low on oil. It only holds four. The
engine in my B had blown up and I had nothing else to drive. I started out
trying to keep it full of oil, but every time I stopped, there was no oil on
the dipstick again. Finally, I'd just stop and put a quart in every time
the oil light came on. Every once in a while I'd go looking for the leak,
but there was so much oil everywhere that I couldn't find it. After I got
my B going again, I finally had the time to find the leak. The car had had
a road draft tube when I got it. Being the environmentally concerned person
that I am, I hunted down an intake manifold from a Midget that had the PCV
port and valve and installed them on the 1100. This was a bad idea because
the car has so much blow-by that the plugs would only last a week. When I
reinstalled the road draft tube, I didn't put back in the bolt holding the
bottom of the tube. It turned out that the threaded hole in the block for
the road draft tube bolt had been drilled all the way through the block.
> BTW: Why are all we Yankees so excited about the demise of the 55 mph speed
> limit? Has anyone been paying any attention to it for the last decade??
This I _do_ know. We're excited because we can now drive the speeds we
always have and not be doing anything illegal. Because we occasionally
care about not breaking the law.
Denise Thorpe, probably breaking laws I don't even know about
thorpe@kegs.saic.com
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