WESTFIELD QUESTION

[GREGA]

Quick question, I have a pre-lit westie with a 1600 x-flow engine. On it is a rubber pipe coming from just below the oil-filler cap it runs straight out onto the road, is it an overflow pipe of some sort? If so what does it do? There is oil coming from it straight onto the road. I took it to a garage but he could`nt see the point of it. Any ideas?

[liszt]

Sounds like an oil breather pipe

[GREGA]

Yes thats what I thought. But should it be spraying loads of oil onto the road?

[LRdriver II]

No.. it should drop into a catch tank of sorts. You can make one quite easily ie bicycle water bottle with a breather hole in it and the breather pipe down into it. Make a bracket and fix it somewhere..

[GREGA]

Thanks for that, I can understand having something to catch the oil, but should it becoming out in such quantitys that I need to keep topping up the oil?? What would happen If I just put a bung over the pipe near the block, the engine will still breathe throughthe oil filler cap? Any ideas?

[Paul.B]

GREGA said:

Thanks for that, I can understand having something to catch the oil, but should it becoming out in such quantitys that I need to keep topping up the oil?? What would happen If I just put a bung over the pipe near the block, the engine will still breathe throughthe oil filler cap? Any ideas?

It should not be comming out in any quantity that is noticable. YOU DO HAVE A PROBLEM! It may just be something silly like you are over filling the oil. Get it checked out and do not bung up the breather. That is the best advice I can give.


Paul.B

[justin s]

are you sure it's only coming from that breather? Is it part of the cap?.If the pipe is part of the cap,take the cap off and hose and bin it.Go to your local Ford shop and ask for a gauze cap that will fit into the cover.It won't have a pipe and the gauze will filter the oil out of the vapour,keeping it in the engine.The most important breather on a crossflow is the one for the crankcase.This is located under the carbs,bolted onto the same bit of casting as the fuel pump(if fitted) What have you got here? If you have nothing here,it can cause excessive pressure on the rocker cover cap,causing the excessive blow.Crossflows do breath fumes well,are good engines,but just need to be set upright.Come back with the info and I can help.

[custardtart]

chap, you have x flow, these leak oil from the breather pipe at an amazing rate - it's quite natural. What you should have or get is an oil catch tank. westfield sell them and they will need checking regularly or you could do what i did with my x flow westy and use a 2 litre hard plastic bottle (similar to the type you get filled with white spirit) and secure it using straps to the bulkhead then feed the breather pipe into it, this way you can easily see how much oil is in it. After one track day you could easily lose a pint of oil.

[justin s]

Crossflows if have the breather set up properly,don't dump oil at a rate of a pint a track day.Most of the oil will come from the breather on the crankcase and if you use an open breather,the rotating crank will throw it straight up the pipe and fill the catch tank.Burtons do a petrol pump baffle plate which will mean the use of an electric fuel pump,and this bolts where the mech pump used to go.This prevents the oil from being thrown into the catch tank.Also run the breather hose up over the rocker cover to the tank and this allows the oil mist to run back to the sump than filling the breather tank.Just a few brain cells thought can stop you filling your car with oil every 50 miles and draining catch tanks.I used to manage about 2.5k before collecting about an egg cupfull of oil in the tank and it did breath and never blew gaskets from internal pressure build up.

[Graham.J]

My XF used to fill up the catch tank rather rapidly and I've just finished re-doing the breathing for it (just waiting for a bracket for my catch tank).

I've got a straight take off from the block with a pipe going to the far end of the rocker cover.

A pipe from the oil filler cap to my sealed catch tank which has a filter on top which breathes to the atmosphere.

I'm hoping this will sort out the problems I was having and it holds it's oil better.

[dern]

My xflow had an oil filler cap with a breather and gauze built in and it never chucked out oil but it did have a crankcase breather hose that ran into a catch tank that needed emptying fairly regularly. There's loads of info on the wscc site about routing breathers for xflows that's worth an evenings read.

Mark

[justin s]

Graham,if you use an electrical fuel pump,look at the Burtons catalogue and there on p13 is the part 'petrol pump blanking plate with deflection plate' part number FP281.If you use this,it will baffle any oil going up the pipe.They didn't do one when I had a crossflow and made my own up and it works a treat.It's only £9.40,which will be about 500 miles of fresh oil you will be filling the engine up with.