Triumphrat

lovecuba

My 2001 Adventurer has again began losing excess oil via the breather hose. Some 6000 miles ago I replaced the crankcase cover seal and centrifugal oil flinger. Now the former was done in a bit of an 'ad hoc' way. Let me explain. In the first instance, when I noticed excess oil contaminating the air box, I replaced the seal only. Problem still occurred. Guru's on this forum suggested replacing the flinger, this I did. Luckily had kept the mandrel from the recently replaced seal. Took the cover off and immediately placed the mandrel in the seal to retain it's form and shape and duly fitted the new flinger. The reason of course for taking this line is that the cost of the very small seal is $75NZ. Re-routed the breather hose away from the air box and into a piece of foam which sits in on top of the alternator. All good! All that was needed then was to occasionally clean the foam.

The seal is an odd thing. Has a thin neoprene membrane which fits over the shaft of the oil flinger in a convex manner (looking at it fitted). It appears to be designed to allow excess gases to escape by opening the membrane off the shaft. Under normal conditions gases flow through the centre shaft of the flinger with oil being flung by centrifical force back into the cover.

As the oil blowing out the hose is clean, I do not suspect piston ring blowby. The engine is fine and well tuned and oil level is correct. My thoughts are that the seal has failed. And, what I would ask is, should I replace the OEM seal with a normal oil seal that has the correct dimensions? That is, a normal automotive oil seal fitted with a spring.