Inflexible hose

[adriantr4]

Hi

I've been working my way through a number of jobs, very ably assisted by this forum, with the goal of getting the car (a '4) mobile after a number of years asleep.

The big day was Saturday, and I was very pleased that it fired up well and ran strongly. A very good sign (I think) is that it responded to carb and ignition adjustments exactly as given by Haynes. In previous episodes, a long, long time ago, I had an awful job getting it to run right as it wouldn't tune up at all. This was due to dud ignition wires, cap, rotor arm, etc. Basically poor sparks under compression I suspect. When the parts were replaced all was well.

Anyhow, back to Saturday and despite a strong start I realised after a few minutes that the windscreen was covered in oil ........... The flexible hose connecting the oil feed from the engine block to the oil pressure gauge had failed, with pinholes. Oil sprayed out, quite dramatic.

I removed the hose and it is very brittle, so I suspect it might be an original part. Certainly very old! The engine in my car is a late '3A, so the hose might be from the late 50's?

The moral of this is to check that hose - bendy = good, rock solid = bad.

As an aside, I did read somewhere of a guy who had an oil pressure gauge pipe let go at the dashboard end, thus dumping oil onto girlfriend. Her reaction was not positive.

regards, Adrian