I had a rather serious oil leak coming from my buggy that was coming from the general area where the transmission and engine meet at the bellhousing, and we were pretty sure that it was coming from the rear main oil seal. Bryan said to come on by his shop and we would fix it…Well, I appreciated the gesture but how many people really mean it when they say “we’ll†work on it..??? Well, I didn’t call Bryan that week but he sent me a note on Friday and said he was ready to go, come on over on Saturday, Sept. 8th. So I show up and Steve (Blackthree4me) and his son Hayden also show up to help. (Steve/Hayden, very nice car you guys have there). Since I am a rank amateur at Dubya’s, I watched and participated in getting the engine ready to pull. Next thing I know Steve and Bryan had the engine sitting on the ground. Total elapsed time is less than 1 hour. Next comes the teardown. Much to our surprise, the oil leak is in the area of the flywheel seal…What’s up with that..??? Further inspection shows the rear main seal to be as dry as a bone… With Bryan and MURZ’s help I had bought all of the right parts except for one thing, I needed a new clutch disc as the installed one was oil soaked and was toast…Since it was Saturday, everyone was closed and finding a clutch disc that late in the day would be futile, so the buggy repair would have to wait…Shut it down, drink some beer and tell some war stories…
Monday rolls around, I order the clutch and ask for next day delivery. Much to my chagrin, UPS does not pick up the order…So another day delay at this point as I assume it’s at home waiting for me to go out to Bryan’s. Clutch disc finally comes in a day later…I get out to Bryan’s too late because of work so we drink a beer and tell some war stories. Bryan calls the next day as I’m leaving downtown and says “Houston, we have a problemâ€â€¦Appears that the dowell pins on the crankshaft end where the flywheel attaches were too long and prevented the flywheel nut from being sufficiently tightened, which is probably what caused the flywheel seal failure in the first place. Since we don’t have any new dowell pins, out comes the portable grinder which works on all the dowell pins at the same time. Then out comes the dremel tool to make things look pretty. Put new real main seal in, put new flywheel seal in and check crankshaft end play (runout) and put the three right shims in to bring it to acceptable tolerances….Torque down flywheel (nice cheater pipe there, Bryan…lol). Check crankshaft end play again and stop for the night, drink a beer and tell more war stories….By now it’s Thursday night…Go out to Bryan’s Friday at 1:00 PM and detail engine, put same back in car and start buttoning things up…Hotter than Hades by now, so we drink water and no beer…Change oil, fire it up, Bryan checks timing and advance, adjust carbs, etc. Repair exhaust leak and adjust idle…Things are sounding pretty good at this point. Take the car out for a spin and got down on it a few times which prompted Bryan to say (“This thing hauls Heineâ€). Got back to shop and let it sit…Go back and look later, NO OIL LEAK..!!!
Go home and park it…NO OIL LEAK…Take buggy out yesterday and put 180 miles on it…(BTW, found a nice restaurant on the square in Bellville, yum, yum)…Buggy drew a crowd, would have thought a space ship landed…Got home and parked it…NO OIL LEAK…
Learned a lot about that buggy, mostly thanks to Bryan and Steve…Above all, I got to know some fellow club members pretty well too…Bryan is not only a good person, he’s a heck of talented buggy guy/mechanic too…I really appreciate all of your time, work, sweat, beer, laughter and lessons learned while working on that car. I’ll be dropping by tonight with a little happy for you , Bryan…I just won’t be able to stay too long as Pat was really beginning to wonder where I was going every night for the last week …lol
Forgot to mention that we put a new pulley bolt in as well, along with a dab of blue loctite…Was still in last night when I shut it down…Hopefully that’s over…
Did I mention NO OIL LEAK..???
Thank You for All Your Help, Bryan…
Rick
