Gearbox angle drive oil leak

[holywood3645]

I posted this question on a different thread and didn't get any replies, I'm now getting to the point I need to put the motor in the chassis, but dont know what to do to fix the oil leak from my angle drive, or how serious or common this problem is. I would REALLY appreciate some insight.


post152163.html#p152163


Thanks
James

[ardee_selby]

I posted this question on a different thread and didn't get any replies, I'm now getting to the point I need to put the motor in the chassis, but dont know what to do to fix the oil leak from my angle drive, or how serious or common this problem is. I would REALLY appreciate some insight.


post152163.html#p152163


Thanks
James

Can you tell (us) where the leak is actually coming from? Is the "O" ring sound and properly seated?

Cheers - Richard

[AHM]

There is also a paper gasket (4)

[holywood3645]

I forgot to in stall the paper gasket Item No. 4

Thanks for the help

James

[holywood3645]

I thought I had this fixed by it still dripping oil slightly. Will the 25 t (No.1) gear just come out if i pull it hard enough? so I can check the O ring. I'm assuming the Gear box needs to be drained.

Thanks for input

James

[holywood3645]

Delete

[gjz30075]

Gearbox does not need to be drained, although some fluid might come out when you pull the gear. Helps to have the car with the nose pointing downward a bit.

Greg Z

[CBUEB1771]

I thought I had this fixed by it still dripping oil slightly. Will the 25 t (No.1) gear just come out if i pull it hard enough? so I can check the O ring. I'm assuming the Gear box needs to be drained.

Thanks for input

James

Yes, the gear (No.1) and the bearing (No.3) will come out. I would not pull on the gear shaft. The bearing can be difficult to move and I would worry about damaging the driven gear by pulling on the shaft. I have had success by work a very small flat blade screw driver to knife blade under the flange of the bearing and working it out. In my experience the o-ring has been fine. The right-angle drive gearboxes can be inherently leaky.

[david g]

On the drive shaft there is an anti spiral grouve. This screws oil back into the box when in
motion. Oil will probabley seep out until the box is running

david

[holywood3645]

Is Item number 3 readily availiable. I'm having a hell of a time removing it.
Thanks
James

[mini64]

sorry to resurrect an old thread, but it helped me last week. The o-ring is #213 size, available behind the counter at your favorite auto parts store or cheaper at a hose and gasket or bearing place. if your old one is 40 years old then the new one may look a little different in size due to relaxing over the years, but i checked the tables and the drive diameters are what is shown in an o-ring book. best of all, no more leaks for me!

[Tahoe]

I had an annoying leak at the paper gasket. I removed the gasket, and used epoxy to join the 2 aluminum pieces. All is tight and leak free since. I was told that this fix is outlined in Dave Beans book.

[G4ILN]

There are several threads on this subject, but this looks like the most informative. The diagram is most helpful.

I have this problem, but it looks like the oil is coming out from the outer end of the knurled nut which holds the 90 degree drive in place. ie to the left of the circled '7' annotation on the drawing. Despite the nut being fully tightened it is possible to rotate the whole 90 degree drive round the shaft (I don't mean the bearing carrier which is rigidly held by the fork). Is this normal?

As far as I can see the speedo drive is below the level of the gearbox oil filler/level plug and thus has oil behind it, so it can run out around the rotating shaft which has no seal, but only a spiral groove to drive oil back when the car is running.

The strange thing is that for some time the car, which is under restoration, has had the gear box filled, but no speedo cable connected to the 90 degree drive, yet there's been no leak. I assume I disturbed something when connecting the cable.

The car hasn't been driven, but just pushed back and forth by about 20 feet to get it in and out of the garage.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks, Graham.

[elanner]

I've been futzing with oil leaks in the area around the speedo drive and seem to have fixed several:
- New O ring
- New fibre gasket
- Permatex gasket maker on the mating surfaces of the adapter and the angle drive. 5 & 7 in Richard's earlier picture
- Thread sealer on the bolts that hold the exhaust bracket on the rear of the gearbox.

All of these were leaking to some extent but are now nice and dry.

However, ever since I purchased the car I've always found a drip hanging off the gearbox mounting bolt - part 11 in the picture below. I was hoping that the fixes above would cure this problem, although it was unclear how oil from any of them could have worked its way to the underneath of the mount.

Anyway, given that the leak at the mount persists, does anybody have any suggestions where it comes from? Does the gearbox hole go right through the tail casing (in other words, is not blind)? If that's the case it would be simple enough to take it apart and apply some thread sealer. But I've been under there rather a lot recently so hope that somebody can tell me so that I don't have to do another exploration.

If the hole is blind then I'm out of ideas. Surely oil from a leaking tailshaft seal couldn't end up there?

elan-gearboxmount.png (48.08 KiB) Viewed 2290 times

I will add that I found the bolt for the speedo drive clamp to be positively the most difficult to fit that I've yet encountered on the Elan. Ugh.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Nick

[elanner]

At LOG last weekend Greg Z. and I got to talking about the vital topic of speedo angle drive leaks and I realized that my previous post was missing a couple of points, so:

- When changing the O ring (part no 2 in the earlier diagram) I had two types to choose from:
a) A regular O ring. Unfortunately the O ring I removed seemed to be in perfect condition and indistinguishable from the new one. So I figured the new one was as likely to weep oil as the removed one. Not the goal.
b) A Quattro O ring. I'd never seen one of these before but a pack of 5 appeared from an eBay order that I thought was for regular O rings. Anyway, they seem quite clever: http://www.jroyal.com/quattro-seals.html:

"Quattro Seals? are four-lobed and feature a geometry with twice the number of sealing surfaces compared to standard O-Rings. With double the sealing surfaces, a Quattro Seal? can perform at lower pressures and/or with reduced squeeze than a standard O-Ring. The four-lobed design also results in a more stable seal, reducing the likelihood of spiral twisting in reciprocating applications. The reason is that rather than relying totally on squeeze to achieve a seal, Quattro Seals? employ both deflection and squeeze to create the seal."

quattro-o-ring.jpg (17.9 KiB) Viewed 2126 times

So I used a Quattro ring which, so far, has been perfectly dry.

- Gasket maker on the mating surfaces of the adapter and the angle drive reduced the leak at that point but didn't completely fix it. So I fitted a Viton washer between the two faces. The washer size was 5/8" x 1/4" (same as for the cam cover, I think). This too, so far, has been dry.

I'm still not completely out of the woods because I suspect that oil is weeping past the little cover on the angle drive itself. That will have to wait until my next excursion under the car.....

As for the gearbox mounting bolt oil drip. I took the bolt out and a few oil drips followed it. So I refitted it with some thread sealer and there have been no further drips. Problem fixed. The only wrinkle is that when I tried to examine the hole in the gearbox, which is not easy because the exhaust is in the way, it seemed to be blind. It can't be blind and leak so it's a bit of a mystery.

Nick