Finally, a solution!
Posted on Jun 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm by The Team
So there we were, putting the engine back together at the shop when suddenly the cause of all the problems was revealed! There is an oil pump in this car that pushes oil through a tube into each one of the four cylinders. Before we set off on our journey we were doing a lot of test drives and checking the oil in these cylinders and everything was looking really good, but now all of a sudden the oil in the front cylinder was running dry. After Rich got back with the new Babbitt and we had put everything back together, we were just doing some final adjusting of the oil lines, hooking them up a little differently to get more oil up into that front cylinder to see if we could keep it from running dry. When we started the engine we found oil dripping on the outside of the oil line. That is not right!
There it was, a spot on the brass line about a half inch long that was rubbing on the steel firewall enough to create a hole. That hole was making it so it wasn’t sending oil up to the front cylinder and instead was starving it, that caused the babbitt to go dry, get really hot and then melt. Because this small part of the brass line was touching the steel firewall it had rubbed and vibrated until it worked a hole in the brass tube. That hole was causing us to pump oil out of the tube instead of up into the engine!
So now we’ve got the cause of the problem identified and fixed, the new babbitt poured in the connecting rod, and the engine back together. Now we are making the short journey up to Buffalo and so far, so good.
WOW, thanks for filling us in..its always the darndest little things. Hair, heels and holes(Sampson, Achilles, and Maxwell)
Jim
Jim Batsford on June 12th, 2009 at 6:44 pm #
Congratulations on your remarkable journey. I met you today (June 12th) on Route 20 in the Town of Evans. You were stopped on the side of the road and I tried to help push start the car that wouldn’t start. It was a pleasure to meet you and your friends and I wish you the best of luck. I’ll be following your progress.
Mark Bouvier on June 12th, 2009 at 6:51 pm #
Hey Girls and guys!- glad you got it figured out!!!!!!! Maybe you can get back on track now. It was a blast to have you over Thur nite! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
We’ll keep watching……..
Bill and Linda
Bill on June 12th, 2009 at 7:11 pm #
Great job Rich and Tim the Maxwell wrench I hope you guys get some sleep now that the Maxwell is running right Hopefully it is smoooooth running from here on Three cheers for Dad and Tim we can’t wait to see you here in Iowa sounds like you are haveing a great time keep the spirit up and rember never never quit
Dennis McGuire on June 12th, 2009 at 8:28 pm #
Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Hope this is the good news you deserve, one of you must have been a Harley mechanic in another life. Phil
Phil Cochran on June 13th, 2009 at 6:04 am #
You could not have found a better repair shop that Steve Bono’s. I had a similar experience with my 1911 2 cyl Maxwell a couple years ago on the MN New London-New Brighton run. I had added a shut-off on the oil line from the oil supply tank to the engine, to keep the oil from dripping into the engine when not running. Apparently I only had tightened one of the fittings and it came loose after running about 50 test miles. The end result was to re babbitt one rod bearing. Doesn’t seem that long ago that I set in on Richard’s talk about Alices Drive at the HCCA meet in SanDiego.
Looking forward to meet up with the tour at Kearney, NE on the 23rd and lunch at Cozad, NE
Kermit Wilke
Wilcox, NE
Kermit Wilke on June 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm #
this all just adds to the adventure!! You don’t want it to be easy. Where’s the fun in that? Glad you found the problem and the solution. I’ll be happily following along as an armchair passenger.
Joan Gonzalez
Corona, CA
Joan Gonzalez on June 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am #