Oil coming into footwell!

[Harris]

Help!

[oakall2]

Oil or brake/clutch fluid ?

[2robert4]

If you don't have an oil pressure gauge fitted chances are it will be fluid from the clutch or brake master cylinders requiring seal or unit replacement. On the other hand if you have a oil pressure gauge fitted you need to look at the fluid and ascertain if it is engine oil or brake fluid in which case either the Oil feed tube has fractured or the seal between the gauge and the tube has perished or even the nut that holds the tube to the gauge has vibrated loose or as previously mentioned one of the master cylinders requires attention.
Hope this helps
NP

[Harris]

Hello all,
Pretty sure it's the nut on the oil pressure guage that is loose. On a two hour drive we got about a pint of oil in the footwell. Before the Kestrel is retired for the winter I will get the dash out and tighten the nut. Another job to do is replace the speedo as the dial totally does its own thing.

[canuck]

Harris,

As Robert states pay attention that there may be a tiny leather washer on this gauge fitting line/olive.  The majority of this type gauge do come fitted with one.

Either your fitting is merely loose or the washer has gone awol.

B

[Harris]

If the washer is missing or damaged shall I just put a bit of rubber in it's place or is it possible to buy these washers?

[canuck]

Harris,

I am only assuming there is a leather washer there.  Many UK cars that had Smiths gauges employed such a seal. I have no idea what is fitted to your ADO16

You will need to source a parts list for the ADO16 model you have to determine what sort of seal, if any is used here. 

No matter the what, a solution is at hand, be it simply tightening the line/olive or replacing the rubber/leather seal. 

First order of business is to stick your head & hands behind the dash to find out

B

[Harris]

It was definitely oil from the oil pressure gauge.
However it has sealed itself and has been fine since!

Hoping it will not re-occur!

[Harris]

It's hot engine oil.

Only happens on long journeys once the engine oil gets really hot.

Short journeys are fine without any leaks.

I might do pictures this weekend.

[Harris]

False alarm everybody!

The hot,thick and black liquid that was coming into the footwell was actually anti-freeze!

Turns out the incoming heater matrix pipe had a tiny hole just outside the bulkhead.After long journeys once the engine had heated up and expanded due to the heat the pipe would start squirting and running down into the footwell.

I have no idea why the water was black but I had more of it when I cut the pipe to rejoin it.

Story goes that we went down to Collumpton from Bath last weekend and 10 miles before we got there the red charging light came on and the temperature started rising.

Symptoms pointed to a snapped fan belt but as we were close I thought it best to plough on! Half a mile to the destination and the engine started smoking so I pulled over and abandoned the car. It was the fanbelt that had gone.

Later on I came backto get the car.We got towed to Malcolms who not only replaced the fanbelt but also bypassed the heater matrix so that we didn't have the leak.

We travelled home without any heating.

I've just come in from flushing the cooling system by removing the copper screw at the bottom of the radiator to empty it then refill,run the engine,empty and refill with hot water until the water was clear.

I cut the offending piece of pipe off and replaced it with brand new pipe from Malcolm. Blue coolant at 33% to the rest distilled water is now in and air bubbles out by running with the cap off.

I've got more coolant to hand which I'm sure I'll need after a short run tomorrow.

So car has been flushed and heating is back!