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Austin Healey parts spares and accessories are available for Austin Healey 100, 100-6, 3000, Sprite, Bugeye (Frogeye) and other Healey models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

Austin-Healey Sprite - bugeye

I just had my 1960 Bugeye engine and transmission rebuilt by a Mech./racer. My problem is or the cars
problem is it continues to leek oil out of the rear
main seal. The mech. tells me this is normal. amount
of oil is 3 to 4 teasp. every time I drive it. Is
this normal ???
TOM PEOTTER

There is no real rear main seal on a 948cc motor, so yes, a certain amount of oil will almost always come from the rear. This is also somewhat true of the front gearbox shaft and as they wear out, it only becomes worse. I believe that there is a modern seal to machine into the 1275cc rear, but its been a long time since I studied that. Yes, normal and for the age of the car (made in the time when the EPA did not exist) this was normal.

Your car will almost always leave a healthy 1/2" round small spot of oil on the ground (a few drops) unless you want to spend a bit of money re-engineering the rear of the motor.

-BMC.
BMC Brian McCullough


> Thank you Brian for responding. I can understand that 1/2" round oil spot
> might be normal but mine is orver 14" round...

Tom,
That is just a "little" larger oil leak then normal for any British car. You will need to fix that as you are probably going through a quart of oil every 50 miles at that rate. Inspect the side covers of the motor and make sure its not coming out of them or he oil an gasket. If not, then its likely that you will need to pull the motor to fix the problem. One more item before you panic and get ready to pull the motor- make sure that the motor has adequate lower end crankcase ventilation. If it does not, it will pump oil out any seal it can. There should be a breather on the valve cover or on one of the two side tappet covers. If there is no breather, then this would explain the oil being pushed out like this. Somewhat of a common thing after being rebuilt for people to put on all the parts for one of these motors without any breathers..
On a 1275cc motor, they use a breather on the timing chain cover, but on the 948/1098 series with tappet covers on the side, this breather would be located on one of the two covers... You can also get a valve cover with a breather stock.

As silly as it might sound, the breathers could also be plugged, possibly from a wad of paper or something during cleaning or painting of the motor.
-BMC.
BMC Brian McCullough

This thread was discussed between 17/06/2003 and 10/07/2003

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