Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 lockdown oil problems

I haven't started the three wheeler for a month or more due to current restrictions and was surprised when Claire told me about a puddle of oil under the engine. I have not had the time to rectify the crankshaft oil seal / shaft fault on my machine but it does not leak - till now! thinking about the situation and reminded by similar leaks on the Velocette I assumed that the oil from the tank had drained down in to the crank cases and reached the shaft where, over time, it has seeped through the seal - I was correct. what surprised me was that when I started the engine to pump the oil back up to the tank it splurged about half a litre out through the breather in to the air intake filter and thence to the garage floor! It must have been quite full.

The moral of the story is obvious - if you are leaving the car unused for any length of time fire up the engine every couple of weeks to make sure the crankcases don't get filled up.

Maybe a little spring loaded ball valve in the feed line like the one on the Velocette would be the answer? Can't beat a good old idea.

Hello Phil,
Reminds me of my recently sold Norton Commando, I fitted a ball valve in the feed pipe from the tank and had a nice big reminder sign on the handle bars, worked a treat.

Would a solenoid valve connected to the ignition work as well? That way you couldn't forget to turn it on.

Yes I have had that only the once though, on starting my car after it returned from its long trip back from New Zealand last year, it does make quite a mess at least it wasn't my floor though.

It's impressive how much oil can find its way down into the sump after a few weeks. I've taken to draining it and tipping it back into the tank...seems to make for much easier starting too.
How about a small bilge type pump to give a separate feed back to the oil tank? Should at least fail safe and simply not work once it packs up rather than stopping the oil feed to the engine. Don't know if anything suitable exists or how much of a pain it would be to plumb it in.

Makes you wonder why most other engines have that silly idea of a wet sump at the bottom of the engine.....

Seems to go hand in hand with smaller crank cases, which I suppose can’t hold the volume of oil needed for effective circulation and cooling?

I wouldn’t want anything that relied on me remembering to open a valve, even with a warning sign I know what would happen😳.

Unless the key was welded to the valve.

😂

Just in case anyone is thinking “I’ll get an after-market automatic anti wet sump valve”, when I was researching this topic for my Norton it seemed that only the Velocette device had a good track record.

Other than that there’s a long trail of broken engines caused by air locks downstream of the check valve and immediately in front of the oil pump (which they are not good at dealing with) and so the valve fails to open up on pump suction as it should.

So for me it’s either fit a manual valve with a BIG sign or run your engine regularly.