Uh oh

[bmwloco]

Beautiful day here, so I took the Thing out. Surprisingly, she started right up. I drove her 15 miles without drama...

She puttered to a stop about 1/4 mile from home. If I could have made it up the last hill I could have coasted into my drive.

Raising the engine lid just before leaving, it looked ugly. I saw oil... lots of it.

I'm off with my '71 Dodge and the tow bar, now.

[Ferretkona]

Here's hoping it's simple!

[Woreign]

Oil in the engine compartment? Maybe crankcase pressure blowing oil through the generator? Eeeeew!

I hope whatever the problem is is an easy fix.

[bmwloco]

Without drama, and with skills that are a bit too practiced, I got my Thing home.

All told, it took 35 minutes. Not bad, solo.

There was enough juice and a good starter to get it to drag itself up and into the garage. She's now poised in the dry, airy confines of The Church of the Horizontally Opposed Air Cooled Twin. (I'm a minister and it's my church. I have the papers somewhere saying it's so)

This may be her lair until Spring, or maybe I'll get motivated to look closesly. For now, I'm just glad she's safe and home.

[bucko]

Glad both of you are safe! Keep us posted as to what you find as the source of this nasty oil leak.

By the way, did it loose power? You mentioned you were close to home and it "puttered" out.

Things to look for in an oil leak that can spew out into the engine compartment:

1) Rear Crankcase seal (pehind pulley)

2) Oil cooler in fan shroud

3) Blowby through the oil fill or dip stick

Others will chime in as well with their experiences.

Good luck, and we all hope it's not bad.

[KGCoupe]

[bmwloco]

It'll be a couple days before I can light it up and really take a hard, cold look at the engine.

I'll let you know what I find. I have a sense, somewhat strong, that it's not as dire as it could be.

There wasn't a sound like puppies being abused or any metal/metal sounds or a massive sudden loss of power (I experienced that once in a Porsche 912... it's NOT pretty).

[mstatedog]

be sure to report back to us in 6-packs, how long it took to diagnose the problem.

good luck

dog

[Pinky]

bmwloco- if you are able to tow it over to Warren Wilson in Swannanoa, I work at the campus auto shop here and would be more than happy to help out. We have a full shop to use as well [we mantain (sp?) the 86 fleet vehicles here] with just about anything you would need.

Just drop me a line-

[74 Cosa]

It could be something as simple as a broken oil sending unit. Happen to me. It had a cracked and was pouring oil into the left side of the engine compartment.