Breather probs (Updated again, head gasket)

[CapperTom]

Hi all,

Ive been having probs with my capri latelt, its a pinto engine been mildly modified and has had low or no oil pressure recently. I had a dig around and the oil catch tank was full, emptied it and prob got bout 1/2 litre of what looks like water/gunk/mayo/oil stuff, the prussure is back up now so is this normal? It has one pipe from crank breather and one from oil cap with a breather filter on the tank what setup do you guts run?

Also what dipstick and tube do you use as my twin carbs are in way and tried moving it and now reads nothing but there is oil in there?

Cheers

Tom

[Guest MK1gaz]

Your breather system sounds correct but this shoudn't affect your oil pressure as that depends on the volume of oil in the engine and the main bearings on the crank etc etc . The catch tank will collect oil and vapour which will look all shitty . Clean it out and see how long it takes to fill up again , if it fills up quick and you get lots of smoke out the catch tank breather then maybe the pistons rings are on the way out . As for the dip stick most people have the wrong one fitted inside the wrong tube so this means that the dip stick is not reaching the oil in the bottom of the sump . You need to measure the dip stick and make sure it's long enough . You can also carefully bend the dip stick tube to miss the inlet manifold , drain the engine oil , then re-fill the engine oil with the right amount , insert the dip stick and re-mark it with a hacksaw cut to the now "full" oil level

[CapperTom]

Hi,

Thanks for your help MK1 gaz ,

It looks too be the head gasket gone so the heads coming of at weekend for a skim up. Nt really happy as engines only been in for 2 months or so but nvr mind suppose it comes with the tuning cars terrioratory really.

Tom

[MK2Ed]

Sometimes the watery stuff can also be fuel deposited in the catch tank and natural by product of an engine which runs very rich or has done a lot of cold running, or a driver who blips the throttle a lot

[CapperTom]

But there was close too 1/2 litre of water/gunk come out of the tank should there be that much, the engines only been in for maybe 2 months?

I just drained the oil out and there wasnt much in there which could be the low pressure, and ive had a slight water leak from where i had one of them shite kenlowe variable thermostatic fan controller unit things fitted in the rad neck?

What do you think now?

 

cheers

[CapperTom]

Just got my head gasket off and noticed water staines on the gasket where the jacket goes through from the block to the head but there no holes for it too go through, only pen sized holes in some? is this right, i just been on burtons website and can see 2 different types, one with the holes and the cheaper one without.

Is there different ones?

Cheers in advance

Tom