Front breather plate and oil consumption

I read an article once regarding the front breather plate becoming clogged which can cause incresased oil consumption. Is this something that you check often? I am changing out my Weber's manifold with a new one and I thought I would have the mechanic take a look. What are the steps in cleaning it, etc...?

Thanks for your help.

Bill

1970 MGB
1976 MGB

You check by blowing into it. If it is easy, the breather is fine. To clean it, pour solvent through it. If that is hard to do, place it in a pan of gas and light it up (carefully) so the fuel burns out the plug. rinse in solvent and you are good to go.

Thank you for the help. I took the picture of the article with my phone and it is a little blurry. The article mentioned that there is a piece of mesh in there and it shouldn't be removed (if dirty) after cleaning the plate. After the plate is cleaned, it said you should replace the dirty piece of mesh with a Chore Boy coppper scrubbing pad. Does this sound right?

Thanks again.

I would recommend you take it off before pouring solvent through it.<G>

as for blowing air thru it, that you can try on the car.

After several decades of use, It's not surprising that the oil separator, on the front tappet cover, can become clogged or restricted. Since you have the manifold off, remove the front tappet cover and soak it in solvent to clean out all of the accumulated gunk. Blow some compressed air through it to remove any residual solvent. This should bring the separator back up to stock. RAY

Is there a mesh piece that goes in before the plate goes back onto the block?

Hi Bill ! Haven't seen you post much so I'll offer a belated WELCOME.

As Chris says, remove the oil filler cap, attach a length of hose to the breather stand pipe, clamp it tight and blow through it. There should be very little resistance to your air flow.

If you sense that the system is stopped up, you should take the cover off and clean it.

Just pouring a solvent through it will either fill the stand pipe to over flowing, or, if the solvent does flow through, it will contaminate your engine oil and you will have to do an oil and filter change. If have an oil cooler and you fire the engine off before doing the change you will also have to remove the cooler and lines to drain them of the solvent laden oil that will still be in there.

IMHO filling it with gasoline and igniting it would be VERY dangerous. If you have never seen a tiny amount of gasoline explode you would be in for a real treat when you light off three or four ounces, and possibly a trip to a burn center too.

The back side of the front cover is a chamber in which there is a metal gauze, sort of like a Brillo pad. The idea is to allow crankcase pressure and fumes to be expelled without taking lots of oil with it. The gauze allows vapor to pass but causes the liquid to precipitate and run back into the sump.

Cleaning can be done several ways. You can soak the thing in a petroleum solvent, wash it out with a running jet of K1 kerosene or Varsol, or even boil the thing in water for a while. Just anything that you might ordinarily use to clean grease would eventually get the job done.

Replacing the cover is best done in a specific way.

Apply a thin coat of 3M weather strip adhesive to the plate and to one face of a RUBBER gasket, stick the two together for about 30 seconds, pull the gasket away and allow both faces of adhesive to dry for about two minutes. Then stick the gasket back onto the cover. Then make sure the bolt that will the plate in has a peculiar little cup shaped washer with a rubber seal under it. Place the plate in position and hand screw the bolt down until the plate is held squarely where it is supposed to go. Then tighten the bolt with a wrench slowly to the point that the gasket is obviously held tightly but not so tightly that is is squirted away from its place.

The rear plate is installed in the same manner, but back there you should use a CORK gasket.

Hope this helps, Jack

Oh my! That was poorly written! Good catch Mac!