Slight Leak

[Freightrain]

Well, over the last few months I've noticed a slight coolant drip on passenger side. I traced it down to the air compressor and finally got a few days to tear it down as I've been traveling with it alot now that racing season started.

I knew it was either the head gasket or the brass fitting coming out the front side(nearest inj pump). Sunday morning I got up and decided to get motivated. I pulled the passenger fender off since the last time I pulled it off to get rebuilt the fenders weren't painted and I didn't have to worry about beating them up. Once I got everthing laying in the yard I started on the pump, and once I got it loose I realized what was really wrong. That front 90 elbow(for water) was actually just touching the bolts on back side of govenor housing and apparently over the last 4 yrs cracked the brass elbow(around the threads). Great. Now I need to find another very compact 90 elbow to replace it with. Hopefully my local Mack dealer might have something on the shelf or I'll have to hit the hydraulic joint. I need to get this fixed up by Thurs night because I head out Fri for another race. I was actually thinking of putting this off another week, but with finding the crack I'm glad I didn't because the drip was getting worse then it was a couple weeks ago and I've put a couple trips to southern Ohio on it since.

Sure wish they would have come up with a better design than this, cause it's a real beach getting this thing in/out especially to just fix ONE fitting(that of course is broke because of it's location).

Ain't life grand.

[Speed]

While you have it apart,what's the chance of switching the offending bolt to a different kind,or grinding the head down a little for clearance? Maybe with that and touching the elbow fitting lightly with a grinder you can make enough clearance so the two parts won't touch anymore. I had to do that on my Triumph motorcycle to get clearance between the fuel shutoff valve and the carb I used.

Speed

[Freightrain]

Well, I think most of the problem will be fixed with the new fitting. The new design(machined brass) is much flatter across the top compared to the old forged unit. It's over 1/16" shorter to begin with so touching should not be a problem, but I also ran a tap 3/4 turn farther into head so the fitting will go 1 turn farther into compressor thus giving me a whole 1/8" more clearance.

I'll be finishing it up this evening so we'll see if I find anything else.