Okay, here's the rest of the story. I was playing around with carbs and tuning, and dropped a lock washer down the intake over cylinders 3 and 4. No way to fish it out so had to pull the head on that side. Discovered a bunch of oil/dirt on top of cylinders 3 and 4 while I was in there that I thought might be blocking the airflow. Ended up pulling the engine to clean it up because I was worried about overheating and wanted to find that dang oil leak/leaks that's been buggin me for almost ten years! Replaced rear main as there was evidence of oil leaking there, replaced oil cooler seals as someone had installed the incorrect seals under the oil cooler (slightly larger than what they should have been), and used head bolt washers as spacers under the oil cooler so the over-sized seals wouldn't get too smashed. As it turned out, the washer/spacers were too large and the over-sized seals weren't getting smashed enough! Geez! Replaced tranny seal while we were at it, and got a new 36hp shroud (nice and round, no more flat spot across the top) and painted it teal so all you chrome guys would be jealous. Moved the fuel lines to behind the shroud and re-positioned the coil behind the distributor, sort of out of sight. Got her back in the buggy and took her for a test drive. All okay, but evidence of oil leak near the sump. Closed the door to the barn and went to bed. Next morning, opened the barn door and found this:
Evidence of oil leak around the sump plate so pulled it and found this:
Yep, there's little groove between the engine case halves that the paper gasket was having trouble filling. Cleaned the area super-good and put a spot of JB Weld in that groove and let it dry overnight. Next day sanded the JB flat, installed the new silicone gasket, filled her with oil, went for a spin around the block. Let her sit overnight and found this the next morning:
What the... it's NEVER been like this. A week later, and there still are zero oil leaks under this buggy! When I installed the silicone gasket it was obvious that there was some gasket expansion going on during tightening and I honestly feel that the silicone gasket alone would have been enough to occupy that little groove and stop my leaking case halves without using the JB Weld. Might be something worth checking out if you have a pesky leak in your sump area.
Cheers..
