Way down in the (engine) hole

Well, what better way to spend a day off from the Hole Making Shop than low down and dirty in the engine room of WB Pippin.....

It meant I avoided other people like the, er,....., plague........

It was a bit wet, though not worryingly so......

What was worrying was the oil feed pipe hanging off the bottom of the engine floating in half an inch of oily scunge in the bilge.......

It turned out all right though, with very little in the way of profanity, too.

It was the feed to the manual pump that extracts oil from the sump when the engine is serviced.

At first, I thought it must have vibrated off over the years......

Then I remembered the boorish, loud-mouthed twat, (who was sent to us by a firm of national renown........), that last serviced the engine .........

Could he have neglected to re-fasten this properly? (It would have needed loosening to get at the 'on/off' tap which is hard up against the gearbox....).

Well, we'll never know..........

Anyway, having baled, sponged, and towelled the engine room to a suitable state of cleanth and dryness, I re-attached said pipe. It didn't take long to figure out how, (though it wasn't immediately obvious)... I then checked the engine oil level, which was a bit down, but far from catastrophically so. I topped it up, checked the anti-freeze/water level in the skin tank (absolutely fine having not wept a drop...), then fired up the engine which burst into glorious Beta 50 style song at once.

I then used a Tesco turkey baster to pipette the oily scunge out from under the engine itself (nothing else will fit between the engine and the bearers). It took a while, but was oddly satisfying. I then finished up with a large piece of cotton waste to dry it out as well as I could.

So job done.

But I think we will be servicing the engine ourselves from here-on in..........

And here's the soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3rZgs3dudI

More soon.