As normally happens this time of the year I have been struggling with a long-term chest infection so the lovely weather of late has been largely wasted. I have gone outside for a while but end up having coughing fits and a tight chest. Today I have bought some hay fever tablets in the hope that it could be an allergy of some sort. A doctor’s appointment would be better but seems impossible to get, no available slots for the next 4 weeks. What have we come to?

But a few things have been done and need writing up so as I recover I will do this.

I had noticed an oil leak around the oil filter and on closer investigation it seemed to be coming from one of the unions that would originally have fed oil to or from the now deleted oil cooler. The oil cooler had been bypassed by simply connecting a flexible hose between the steel pipes, with the thermostat left in place. One joint was loose to the point where it could be rotated even though the back nut was tight. I think these connectors use an olive.

Oil cooler bypass arrangement before:

To tidy up and reduce the fault and leak liability I followed the advice on the Glencoyne web site, removing the thermostat and spring and capping the ports.

As seen above, the O-ring (left) that goes around the thermostat housing was in a poor state so this probably leaked a bit too. New one is ERC5913 (right).

The correct blanking plugs are apparently RTC6851 at around £6 each but I used two 1/2″ BSP flanged plugs from the plumbing department of my new local Screwfix at £1.15 each, with copper washers to these and the transducer.

Time will tell if this cures the oil leak, but in any case it looks neater, less to go wrong and another to-do job ticked off.

Thanks for reading.