[T3] Oil cooler seals.

[William Jahn]

Jim :
 I changed the oil today, used Valvoline VR1 , had enough left for one oil
change.
What I never checked was the sump plate and I used the one off the 72 which
has the drain plug. I needed it because the 73 plate was really butchered
and because I wanted to add a VDO temp sensor all I knew about were the
ones they offered for the sump.

 I drove the car to get the oil really warmed up then it drained better and
while I cleaned the screen and plate I decided to check the plate for
flatness around the 6 holes. I always just cleaned it , never over
tightened the  cap nuts. I decided to check it and the 6 holes were dimpled
. I did the best I could with a ball peen hammer , plate on hardwood
striking the ball peen with another hammer. It was better yet still not
flat so I filed each hole flat and then polished the surface with wet /dry
600 . I also discovered since I didn't want to ruin the sender I removed it
and it was too easy maybe 3 ft lbs. I had good copper drain crush washers
and replaced that. Today I put it all back together. This time I only used
a nut driver and 10 mm socket and did the same star pattern three times
with maybe 20 minutes between just to allow the gasket Felpro brand to
compress. I didn't file off much. Maybe .010" the plate is still plenty
thick. I had an old Empi chrome plate yet it was complete garbage, nothing
like the original and certainly not what I would consider flat.

 I don't know why I never checked the plate around the holes, I just looked
at it, cleaned it and back on it went. I just assumed since I never over
tightened it it was fine.

 I know there are other leaks yet the plate always seems to develop oil
drops on the 6 cap nuts. Maybe now this will slow things down. Nothing
looked like much gray sludge, just a bit of black bits that were not
magnetic, Turns out I had to tighten the two cap breather and I did this
after the last oil change and as you know to get at the nut you need to
remove the barrel and washer . I cleaned those yet some of that crud had to
drop down in the sump just pulling them out.

William


On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 9:57 AM Jim Adney <jadney at vwtype3.org> wrote:

> On 20 Jun 2020 at 9:08, William Jahn wrote:
>
> > where I do see fresh oil is on the bottom tins and of course the floor,
> > especially if I have the engine running
>
> Once upon a time, I had a rather moderate leak on an engine that I had
> just
> rebuilt. Eventually I discovered that this was around the oil sump plate.
> When I had bolted the engine case halves together, I assumed they would
> line up perfectly on their own, but on that case, the 2 sides didn't quite
> match. There was a "step" at the case seam, about 1/2 mm high. The oil
> change gaskets couldn't quite seal that much of a mismatch. This step was
> easily felt when I ran a finger around that gasket surface, but I had not
> thought to do that as I assembled the engine.
>
> At the next oil change, I was able to loosen all the nuts along the bottom
> case seam and work the 2 sides back into alignment. It didn't take any
> real
> effort, so I don't know what I did wrong in the original assembly process,
> but
> this is something I always check now.
>
> Of course, I've also come across sumps where someone left half a gasket
> stuck to the case. That's also something a new gasket won't seal.
>
> --
> *******************************
> Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
> Madison, Wisconsin, USA
> *******************************
>
> _______________________________________________
> VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org
> To unsubscribe or change subscription options, visit:
> http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.vwtype3.org/pipermail/type3-vwtype3.org/attachments/20200627/b630100f/attachment.html>