Car just dumped a load of oil!

[WhyTwo]

Help!

Just pulled into the car park at work and as I was walking away from the car I noticed oil underneath. A qucik check and sure enough it's mine there's a pool about 8" in diameter on the drivers side level with the front wheel and it's slowly spreading across the width of the car.

RAC called and should be here shortly but I thought somebody might be able to give some pointers as to what might be the problem?

Real pain as i'm due to be driving it 100+ miles up to Power tomorrow for it's annual service!

[Leadfoot]

The oil pressure sensor is right in the area you've described (mounted on the inner wing above the top chassis rail) & known to leak.
So are a couple of main oil lines tho'.
So is the PAS pump & rack, is it engine oil or ATF?

You'll either need to jack the car up & get underneath or take the bonnet & airbox off to get a good look.

Edited by Leadfoot on Friday 22 May 12:29

[WhyTwo]

Thanks. Well the good news is it's not by the side of the road and there's plenty of room to take the bonnet off and have a look. I'll pass on your info to the nice man from the RAC when he gets here

Edited by WhyTwo on Friday 22 May 13:00

[WhyTwo]

Update - On closer inspection it was water that was leaking and looks like it was from the AC. The oil must already have been there and in an underground car park the light wasn't good enough to see if the oil had come from the Tuscan.

Anyway that was just the beginning. HAving checked everything out the RAC could find no leaks. But now the fans were not cutting in and the car was loosing all the coolant out the filler cap.

Fill it up and drove to a local garage. 30 mins in traffic and it wasn't over heating as the fans were cutting in and out. Pressure test found no leaks so I drove it home. Fans stopped working and it was close to over heating in traffic - got to about 104 before I got on a clear road and it cooled down.

Problem is I need to get to TVR Power for a service tomorrow and it's 100 miles away! RAC will only recover it 10 miles. Should I put it on a low loader and ship it to Power? God knows how much that would cost. Or should I just leave early to avoid traffic? Local dealer Racing Green have no spare time to look at it until the 11th June when I should be on a ferry to Le Mans

Don't you love TVR!

[D14 AYS]

WhyTwo said:

should I just leave early to avoid traffic?

They open at 8 so I would just head up early.

Good luck

[Leadfoot]

WhyTwo said:

Update - On closer inspection it was water that was leaking and looks like it was from the AC.

Water from the A/C will drop onto the floor on the passenger side.

Can you get to Halfrauds before they shut & buy a head gasket/block testing kit?

[gifdy]

If it's just the fans you're worried about in case you hit traffic, can you not hard wire them on for the trip up ?

[WhyTwo]

The lovely people at the RAC will be round at 9am to put the Tuscan on a low loader and drive him up to see Dom! I was due to take him in for his annual pre Le Mans service tomorrow at TVR Power anyway so I guess I just saved 100 miles of Optimax!

[Macey]

Hi WhyTwo,

Hope you manage to get the problem solved quickly.

Macey

[WhyTwo]

Cheers Macey! It's on it's way on the RAC low loader. i'm sure Dom at Power will have it sorted in no time. Saved me £30 of petrol into the bargain ;-)