OIL LEAK Cont’d....... Today I tackled it. The Rickman frame is a joy. In a couple of short hours, the coils came out cam cover off, cam and cam boxes all out on the bench. Right after I pulled the cam cover though, had a HUGE “Oh sh*t” moment. On the right side cam box, the forward centre bolt was MIA. What was sticking out was the damaged end of a piece of 1/4” all thread, topped by a 1/4” NC “hardware store” crappy nut (7/16” wrench)!! The pictures shows it, next to the correct fastener (from the other side)....... a small job just turned into a career? Unscrewed the nut and used a small pair of vice grips to back it out, then removed everything else.
On close inspection, this head has none of the small fasteners drilled and tapped through to cooling areas of the head. I checked every one, cleaned them out, they are all blind. So, not leaking from there. Next, I cleaned everywhere and started picking out the rubber pucks. None had any extra sealer and centre one on the RHS (where the leak was ) is soaked underneath. So, problem solved.
On to that piece of crap stud! Obviously, someone lost the correct bolt and this was the solution. Fortunately the guy was so stupid, he cut it short, so only the first couple of threads were damaged. Used a leading tap, then a bottoming tap and cut the threads to the very bottom of the well. Cut down a new screw to reach in an extra 4 or 5 mm, so should all go back in.
The amazing part of this story is this motor came out of a K6 I bought a few years ago. It’s a 1974 motor. The previous owner paid a well known local shop big bucks to rebuild this motor. He then could never get it to run, and sold it to me out of frustration (plugged idle jet circuits). What a clown show in that shop!
P.S. when I removed the cam chain tensioner, the lower bolt, closest to the oil pressure switch was out a few threads, never tightened up! I’ll be pulling the rest of the covers and checking a few more details next.
