Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Plus 8 oil drips

Hi
Has anybody come up with a fixed drip tray for a trad Plus 8?
Not sure where it’s coming from but curing it looks like a major job and so better to live with it and find a way of catching the drips.
It’s not a problem in the garage as I have an old boot liner to slide under the car but I can’t be taking this everywhere!

A common issue so somebody must have a solution please.

I think the valley gasket between the cylinder blocks often leaks.

Yep I'm with John here and its not really a big job to change this as Its quite logical. when you have removed all of the gubbins in the centre of the two heads it'll remove so much of the mystery of the V8.

Refitting the only thing to remember is to tuck the valley edges under the gasket edges each side where it joins the heads. If you can't see the origin of the leak it's usually the valley!

😂😂😂 Sorta like diaper than encloses the entire engine area? Love it. You are more honest than most merely to ask the question. The Rover Plus 8 is a disgrace in this area.

I was like you 35 years ago. A leaky engine had to be a sign the owner had failed. I lived remotely in Quebec. No contact with another Plus 8 owner for the first 4 years of ownership and car care. Nothing to compare. In that time, I felt I had to cure the mess. I did so with determination.

I am self-taught with this famous (infamous?) engine block. Don't know much or care about others. I have a theory on the disgraceful leaking..mostly fact and some observation. You see, this was a space-age block when it was first experimentally cast in the very late 1950s. New material, aluminum, much more porous and chemically reactive than cast iron. All sorts of issues. Among these was a reputation for wholesale leaking, and this perception was carried on until this day, handed from one expert to others, generation after generation. I will not mention names, but I have seen engines arrive fresh from the most legendary that mark their place at installation. Experts have no solution. I have never even see a write-up on it.

But I did find out that Rover/LR worked to stop the leaking by modifying the engine, gaskets, components, use of silicone (aka Hylomar) in hope of making the engine run respectably. These things are ignored by the experts. Experts don't like change. The stick to what they were taught 30 years ago. So after a bit of their servicing, even the newer engines become a mess again.

All my own of these V8 engines (I have 5) are bone dry and use no diaper. I have helped with countless others. I do do my own engine work, down to the smallest detail. I claim extensive formal training in Law and Economics and no mechanics whatsover. I can walk you through how to achieve a leakless V8 depending on what of the many of these V8 engine variants you have. They all take different tricks. I can do so with you privately, unless there are other Plus 8ers here who yearn for a non-filthy engine and bay.

Lorne
1984 Plus 8 3.5
1990 Plus 8 3.5 & 4.6
2002 Plus 8 Special, 3.5 & 4.8

P.S. I have noted 10+ leaking areas most often with some failing simultaneously making diagnistics complex. BTW, the improper installation (there are tricks to it) of the valley gasket, and which type you use (tin or composite) is can cause either an oil or coolant leak or both. It is not the first area that comes to mind.

My 2002 car had a small leak from a failing sump gasket. It was a cork gasket. Replaced and no more leaks. Car had done 74k miles when sold. Oil leak started to show at about 60k.
I put opened out cardboard boxes on the floor under the car. Easy to spot drips and keep the garage floor clean.

You make perfect sense.That sump is the best ever for Rover Plus 8s. I use them on all my Plus 8s. It began with the 3.9s and then continued after Land Rover moved to their cast aluminum horrors around advent of the GEMS era. Like the Roadsters cast sump, they shatter rather than dent. They also carry a welcome litre more oil than any earlier sump. They have one easily curable weakness. Their flanges were designed for just a silicone/RTV/hylomar seal which inevitably leaks. The fix is to use the earlier cork gasket made for earlier sumps..with just a dab of sealer to keep in place while offering it up to the engine. The flanges are the same. Always tighten in the correct sequence.

Most people cause the perception of leaking and add to it every time they change their oil. The correct way to change the filter causes a LOT to drip out and around. However, after installing the filter, they do not bother to spray (brake cleaner) and clean all around the filter and oil pump. They run the car and that oil cover the right side of their engine, their starter and bulkhead.

Another common leak is at the valve covers. People still using the old cor gaskets rather than the newer silicone ones.

L.

The steel sump that was on my car was great. I couldn't avoid a rock that fell from a passing vehicle trailer. Huge bang. Pulled over into a layby within yards and checked. Oil pressure gauge showed no loss of pressure. A dent in the bottom of it though. Not a big/deep one. No visible leaks. Dipstick checked ok. I drove carefully home, 40 miles, checking the gauge regularly. Engine still ran sweetly.
Years later when changing the gasket I thought about pushing the dent out ( hammer and dolly). Didn't do it in casethe steel cracked. The dent wasn't near the oil pickup. I did look at a higher capacity sump upgrade but didn't bother.
Good old steel sump.....I dread to think how an aluminium sump would have faired!
Re cleaning oil pist oil change.....yes some spillage from the pre-filled filter. Brake cleaner sprayed to get rid of it. I had that mentality embedded by my dad. Do a job on the car and look for anything to clean.
Brake pads/ drums? Cleanliness is a part of the job.

Not to worry, Sospan.. Hammer away. With a 2002 Plus 8 (or any sump from 1986ish when the MMC switched from Rover to LR supply to the end of the Plus 8 model in mid. 2004, the cars came standard with these best sumps. More clearance and capacity. And steel does not normally crack. It dents rather than shatters. Just use a length of 2x2 and a hammer and bang the dent out. I have been regularly doing that for ages. In the early days , before the rest of the world realized their advantage, these sumps were very inexpensive. As I noted, I keep two per Plus 8, one on the car and the other off getting leisurely de-dented and waiting for its turn at bat again. If it is a comfort if you find/buy your second sump before you start hammering at the first.

One more note for posterity. The other post Sd1 (1977-1987) ) sumps have less clearance and less capacity. Their less deep front section does not quite clear the later 4.6 crankshaft..so without the earlier cork gasket add-on or "relief" of the sump with a ball pean hammer, they can (harmlessly) scare the "expert" engine person witless. Didn't happen to me as I had already had these sumps on my engines when I swapped in my 4.6 and 4.8 blocks and their bigger cranks but I have seen it happen to swaggering "pros".

Lorne