9 Apr 2025

9 Apr 2025

Well, no pics today and not really much of a post either. Had a call from the mechanic this morning to take the car over and he would have a look at fixing it for me. So punched the address into the Tom Tom and off we went, except that part way through the journey the Tom Tom decided that it wanted a nap and took some work to get it to wake up again, which it did very reluctantly, but we got there.

The mechanic luckily had a mate visiting and they both set to work on the car, getting it up on a hoist and seeing the amount of oil covering everything underneath, all nicely mixed with fine dirt as they were doing road works along the way, was just saddening. They set about pulling the gearbox out and took the engine backing plate off, on the Morris it is this plate that makes the housing for the oil pump. They decided that it looked like the wrong type of oil pump was used (Mini and Morris Minor ones are not the same) and someone had used a grinder to try to make the housing to fit the pump. Unfortunately in doing so they managed to put a pin hole in the housing and at pressure that was enough to spray oil into the bellhousing where it then dripped out of the bellhousing drain hole to blow back and cover the underside of the car. Luckily the oil hadn't managed to make its way to the front of the flywheel and the clutch plate.

A new rear engine backing plate was sourced and the pump was given a few gentle nips and tucks to fit the engine plate, thus hopefully oil-proofing the little sucker. They then went through the process of refitting the gearbox and driveshaft and greasing everything and spotlessly cleaning the gearbox cross member before refitting it. A quick blast around the block and all seemed good. So off to the car parts store for degreaser and then off to a car wash to blast some of the crap off the underside.

So driving back into Perth city to where I am staying is basically motorway most of the way and thus higher speeds than a quick blast around the block can afford...

Can you see where we are going here...

The car shakes quite considerably at about 80 kilometres and hour, I am guessing that the flywheel and perssureplate are not in correct alignment with the crankshaft as they were all balanced for the purpose making the "sportier" engine (believe me it is not a great beast off the line or up a steep hill), I wouldn't know but I think that is where the shake is coming from. Additionally when I parked at the motel I had a look under the car and noticed oil drips on the sump and engine backing plate and the thoroughly cleaned gearbox crossmember has fresh engine oil on it...

The very expensive problem engine.