Just popped up on my facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/l6udt2q

Many involved with old cars take pride in getting potential rebuilds running after a half hour or so of tinkering. This illustrates the folly of not removing sump first, esp with Sevens where so straightforward. Obviously major water intrusion. A long wire in place of dipstick may reveal.

(As a small boy I used to be given the Seven head and sump to clean. With several runs under a mile each day, and living outside, on oils of the time used to get a uniform grey sludge but unchanged when stirred and did not release water. The oil pump hid in a little burrow. Main bearings discernibly rumbled at low mileage, but long lived later with a lot of main road running.)

Location: Auckland, NZ

Snap.



Must have been driven like this for ages, BUT no damage done to big/small end bearings thank goodness.

Geoff - Made a start on Mud Wing repairs.

Location: South Norfolk - Next to Suffolk

Ah the days before detergent oils, that amount of sludge is negligible compared to that found in diesel engines in the 1950s with the build up so bad the crank cut troughs in the sludge and service engineers had a special shovel to do an oil change.