Motown

This was done when the car first arrived new oil new filters the works..... I even drained the fuel tank and fitted a new pump and filter.... At that time there was no filings when draining the oil so i can only imagine a seal has let got as you suggested and damaged the engine in the process either through lack of oil or not enough oil circulating.

Firstly id like to apologize to anyone reading this i promised myself i wouldn't write am essay but i need to get this off my chest to ease the sheer frustration i have felt recently. So firstly abit of context..... As some of you will know last year i rescued a silver 2600 Vanden Plas from a wet field in Cornwall which i lovingly restored and drive daily. Soon after i purchased a gold 2600 S off Facebook marketplace which had been standing for sometime (it had various issues including accidentally being misfueled by a previous owner) This car was made roadworthy MOTd and sold onto a good home and i believe the new owner is doing great things with it. Imagine my excitement then when 3 months ago a gold V8 Vanden Plas arrived on my drive that had been off the road for 7 years and desperately needed some TLC. (Series 2 1984 3500 non efi vanden plas) Now for my rant..... Please dont ever be fooled into believing the V8 is the better car just because the V8 sounds nice and values are on the rise.... The 2600 is just as capable as the V8 and far more reliable and easy to work on in my opinion.... Ive spent months between work and family making the V8 roadworthy chasing faults replacing parts of which it had many.... blood sweat and tears would be an understatement... Its been frustrating at times and normally i would say although my frustrations are clear overall it was a fun experience and ive learnt more about SD1s in the process but this is simply not the case. (The bitter chocolate leather seats i plan to get reupholstered in the near future) After all my work was completed two previous attempts to book it in for an MOT were foiled by a sticking throttle and an electrical issue with the lights (the car didnt even reach the garage) With time and patience (which ive now run out of) i managed to fix these issues and it was successfully booked in for MOT (its first in 7 years) this time the car reached the garage but in doing so immediately decided it didnt want to be a car anymore. Now i should mention the car ran perfectly fine when i serviced it and had the carbs set up correctly its not like i filled it with fuel and press ganged it into action...... It also ran perfectly fine for two days while been prepared for MOT and taken on test runs to ensure there was no more faults after 3 months of hard work... It also ran utterly flawlessly on the way to the MOT garage (about 20 minutes from my house) were i had hoped it would pass or be very close to a pass after my intervention..... 300559847_772860697383306_8768194812159087310_n.mp4 But no sooner did it get over the inspection pit at the MOT garage it shat its arse out all over the tester while he was in the pit..... Gushing oil from between the bell house seam and the back of the engine... I need to stress it wasn't dripping or pouring it was gushing.... The oil desperately trying to find a way out the car as quick as possible like it was gonna burst...... As such the garage didn't want to MOT it..... The tester got face full of hot oil and naturally told me to fix the oil leak before bringing it back for MOT. (Rimmer Brothers Moto Lita steering wheel clearly someone spent abit of cash on this car previously) I instantly thought it was the crank seal at fault... Just plain bad luck... The seal could be anything up to 39 years old and for the last 7 years has been dormant.... No doubt its sudden thrust back into action once the car was up to temperature caused its demise... I managed to get the car back home and in doing so noticed with my foot on the throttle huge plumes of smoke coming from the exhaust. video-fb868139-8056-455f-9519-80121477deed-1661350443.mp4 Inspecting the car further i noticed the car was only leaking oil when the engine was running...... Surely if the seal had given up it would be leaking regardless of whether the car was running or not? It also doesn't explain the plumes of white smoke which are only present on acceleration. I decided to change the seal anyway and in parting the box from the back of the engine could see the seal was kaput and there was a fair amount of what i can only describe as oil sludge.... I couldn't tell if it was coming from the box or the engine as it was everywhere but i did notice some fine metal pieces in the oil when i drained it from the engine and havent run the car since. Obviously i am thinking its not going for an MOT anytime soon and i am making preparations for a replacement engine or engine rebuild but i ask you wonderful people of Autoshite what are your thoughts/opinions? Could the crank seal failing really cause these issues or is the car suffering from another issue unrelated to the crank seal? Cheers 😀