Terry wrote: > The engine on Arun has started pushing a lot of oily mist out of a > breather hole next to the connection for the oil pressure sensor. > The indicated oil pressure seems normal, and the exhaust has no nasty > coloured smoke in it, so I've managed to convince myself that nothing > has gone disastrously wrong. My first thought was that I had a blocked > crankcase breather, but I can find no evidence of such a thing in the FR > manual. Could a blockage somewhere else be causing this? It's only > started in the last couple of days, but it was getting very bad this > afternoon, so I need to do something about it.
The most usual cause for oil mist being driven out of any orifice on an engine is an over-pressurised crankcase and the most usual cause for that is worn/broken piston rings. With the pressures involved in diesel combustion you don't need a massive leak to cause significant ring blow-by. So, assuming that there isn't a blocked breather elsewhere (and I'm no expert on agricultural engines ;-))) then my first concern would be for the rings, I'm afraid. And yes, I do remember that you had the engine rebuilt not that long ago but a broken ring could happen suddenly which might explain the rapid onset of the problem. Roger
