Last Tuesday was the monthly Club Triumph local meeting over towards Northampton – I thought that would be an ideal run out to give the car a bit of a shakedown.
So off I went and all seemed fine, the tracking was perfect, no juddering at all. Then after about 30 miles, the problems started – firstly, a squealing from one of the front wheels – bearings? I checked the hubs as best I could by the roadside, they didn’t seem too hot, and there was still no free play, so I elected to carry on (on the basis that I was closer to Northampton than to home) and check them at the weekend. Then my oil light came on. Strange. Fortunately I had a bit of spare oil from the weekend in the boot, so in it went, and all was good – until about 20 miles later when it came on again. Realising I had an oil leak, I bought some more oil (cheap stuff – no point buying anything fancy if it’s just going to leak all over the road again! 😉 ), topped up and carried on. I needed to fill up again just before getting to the meet, but I eventually got there in one piece!
After the meet, I had a good look under the bonnet to see if I could spot the leak, but everything looked fine, so I took a deep breath and set off home again…
To cut a long story short, I ended up using all 5 litres of oil on the way home (the leak got worse!), and had to drive the last 10 miles or so – very slowly – with my oil light on (nowhere was open for me to buy more oil). I’ve found roughly where the leak is from though – it’s somewhere around the oil filter/pump area. The problem is, the whole side of the engine is now caked in oil so I can’t see exactly where it’s coming from. I guess it’ll have to wait a week or so before I get round to sorting it – grovelling around under the car is no fun when there’s 3 inches of snow on the ground! 😮
I just hope it’s a seal blown and not something more serious – and I also hope I haven’t damaged the engine by running it with low oil like that (I’m sorry Rosie, I had no choice!)
Oh, and one of the headlights has blown as well. 🙁 All in all, not a good trip.