A week or so ago I went out for a blast around the Suffolk Lanes on a sunny morning. While passing through a small village, I rounded a blind corner at about 28mph only to find what appeared to be tree debris all over the road. Luckily it was all of fairly small size but, as there was a lot of traffic, I was unable to take evasive action and had to try to straddle the smallest pieces and trust my Wolf Performance rub plate to do it's job.
As I was passing over the last of it, I felt the front offside wheel lump over a piece followed by a loud clang. It seems I caught the end of a piece of wood with some kind of metal imbedded in it. When I had touched the end with my front wheel it had propelled the metal end upwards at great velocity, striking the rub plate, bending it upwards and striking the unprotected edge of the oil pan.
Because of the traffic I was unable to stop immediately and had to wait to pull in safely. I know that if I hadn't had the rub plate in place, the debris would have pierced the oil pan allowing a total oil loss and my engine would have been damaged due to the time I had to keep it running.
When I was able to get a look under the car I could see the damage but no sign of oil leakage. I restarted the engine and all seemed well, normal engine temperature and , on checking again with the engine running, no sign of oil leaks. I drove home carefully and put the car up on ramps to get a better look. The photos explain what I found!
I rang Cain because I thought he would be interested to see what had happened. True to form, Cain and Michelle dropped everything, hopped into their car, even though they live an hour away, came down to have a close look and take some photos of the damage. Cain also supplied me with a new Plate to replace the bent one. There was no damage to the plate mounting blocks.
I have since taken the car to Krazy Horse so that they could look at the creases in the oil pan. They are right on the edge, show no signs of cracks and not near any mechanical parts inside the pan. We decided that just to be on the safe side I should order and have fitted a new oil pan even though there didn't appear to be an immediate problem. I have ordered one and it will be fitted in combination with the Plus 8's annual service.
For the second time I have been saved the horrendous cost of a total engine rebuild by The Wolfman and his superb rub plate! I strongly advise anyone out there with an Aero 8 or Plus 8 without one to have one fitted.
I will say again that I have no connection to Wolf Performance but, as you can tell, am a very happy user of their products. Many thanks Cain.
Last edited by Jmog; 20/03/17 11:31 AM.
