Break Down Story Number 13

Break Down Story Number 13.

The Broken Oil Pressure Sender.

On one of those rare accusations that I drove to work I was travelling along the freeway from the Central Coast to Sydney in my TR7 when as I pulled up at the traffic lights at the end of the freeway the oil pressure light flickered but went out again so I continued. Near Chatswood the oil light was flickering on and off so I pulled into a garage and checked the oil, empty.

I could not see any apparent oil leak, there was no oil any where on the engine or leaking out underneath, but it had to have gone some where. Unfortunately I only had ten dollars on me and not being a child of efpose, credit cards generation I would have to walk to find an ATM. About 1km into Chatswood I found an ATM near the railway station and walked back to the car.

Purchased 5 lts of oil ($25) and put it all in the engine and took off for work about ten km away. Through Artarmon and St Leonard’s, at Crows Nest I stoped at a set of traffic lights, opened the door and lent out and looked under to see if I could see any leaks. I could not see any leaks but I could see a gush, oil was running out and in the 30 seconds that I had been stoped, there was about ½ litre of oil on the road. Continuing on through North Sydney and across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and into the car park at work when the oil pressure light came on again, I had made it but only just.

Put some more oil in it to get it into the work shop, leaving a trail of oil in the process. My thoughts were that the oil pump was the source of the leak but once on the hoist and with the engine running, it was obvious were the oil was coming from, the oil pressure sender.

This turned out to be a very easy fix as it is easy to get to and even though I could not get a Triumph part it did not matter as a Datsun part fitted and that was very easy to obtain. The TR7 was fixed and running within half an hour, but between fifteen litres of oil and the part, it turned into an expensive trip to work, of course it could have been a lot worse.

So ended another Triumph Break Down adventure.

Jim Pope

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