I just changed the oil on The Duchess. Too late I saw that she has a copper washer for the sump plug (unlike my Jeep). 31p from Paddocks. OK...
£6 postage!!!!
So after the inevitable loss of the old sump washer, I'm running without a washer at all. I suspect this will be a rather short lasting oil change :(
If its a plain copper washer just anneal it and pop a bit of sealant on the bolt thread for good measure. It will be fine. I grabbed a mixed set in a nice box on special offer from a plumbing shop over 10 years back for emergency purposes. Yet to use one!
Copper is funny stuff to anneal. Most things its heat to red and cool slowly to anneal or drop in water to cool rapidly and harden. With copper either way leaves it uber soft. I prefer the drop in water bit as it comes out real clean.
Clive
Inevitable? Get your hand in the drain bowl and fish it out :)
You sure it didn't stay on the sump plug? IIRC mine had an aluminium seal on it which colourwise matched the plug.
I was using one of those combined drip tray/oil container things. It turns out the sump plug on this car is about an inch long so I had started turning it with my fingers before it popped out. Of course, the oil was nice and hot so I dropped the damn thing and it went straight into the can. By the time I'd got it out the washer was gone, either in the drip tray thing (no access via the holes which are only about 15mm) or into one of the old milk cartons I used when sieving the oil for the sump plug.
I'm special, me.
After spending rather too long rolling around underneath the Duchess today, I've noticed a lot of leaks. The oil cooler lines don't look too clever and the throttle body heater plate is definitely due replacement. Yay.
Well, the good news is that the TB heater plate isn't too dear and you can order at the same time as your gold plated sump washer. You can also just bypass it by linking the 2 hoses together and it'll never leak again!
Bad news is the oil cooler hose fittings can corrode on to the radiator and you may end up having to replace the whole lot!
She had a new rad about 6 months ago so hopefully it'll come apart again if that's it. I need to clean it all off and find the actual source of the leaks. There's quite a lot of oil underneath the front, that's for sure.
If it's any consolation, I did the same when I changed the oil in Dina's Merc. Thought it odd that there wasn't a copper washer on the sump plug until I found it at the bottom of the drain bowl when I was cleaning up after doing the job. Expecting it to leak with no washer in there I put it somewhere safe to put back as soon as it started dropping oil on the floor. It didn't so got left. Did another oil change recently and remembered the copper washer. Found that I had put it somewhere so safe I couldn't find the thing so it still doesn't have one and still isn't leaking.
That's the silly thing I find with a lot of the 'bigger' parts suppliers - even places like LPG shop at times when I've just needed to buy smaller 'one off' things... the postage on them is stupid. Granted, they probably have a preferred supplier for their shipping, but even so - when you're buying something that could be sent as a 'large letter' on Royal Mail, for 98p 1st class, £6 is just a bit ridiculous.
I had a couple of things from LPG shop last year - which would have fit in a 'large letter' format, but no the cheapest option was Hermes 3-5 day economy delivery (which they lost, and LPG shop had to resend!) To get it any quicker, was a crazy cost, given the options presented...
I ended up buying a couple of other HEVAC ECU's as spares/repair to add to my rebuild stock, and £6 each to send... from the same seller... Won't combine postage either, so £12 for an ECONOMY service. Heck, I send a HEVAC controller as 1st Class Signed for about £5...
Maybe it's just being in the side of things where I ship a lot of bits, that I notice even more how much people rip you off for shipping half the time... anything to make a few extra ££s... I personally don't believe in profiting from shipping charges, by the time I take into account all the other costs (packaging, tape, shipping label/printing supplies, bubble wrap etc) I probably make a loss on posting items, but hey - I'd rather be reasonable than extortionate.
Bypass the throttle body heater, its pointless here. It'll only do one thing - leak again! I think we have enough sources of potential leaks :)