Web Forum for Singer Cars

Hi Gents,

Did you ever try to remove/undo , the oil plugs and oil pipes on a counter balanced crank ??
Because even by removing the punch point and applying some light heat on a plug, resulted on a twisted screwdriver bit, and a slightly damaged plug .
Any help, as usual, will be really appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Thierry,

I have never managed it myself. I just push paraffin (kerosene?) into the oilways and blow it through with an air line, being ever so careful not to damage the bearing surfaces.

The pipes are soft soldered in position and I have considered using an impact screwdriver to remove the plugs but the paraffin has always been free flowing so I have never bothered.

Good luck
Brian

I was told by Dave Hardwick a good 2+ decades ago to always remove them and clean it out. But I agree with Brian, if you can get kerosene to flow through cleanly why bother.

Before I found out my crank was cracked, I used a ultra sonic cleaner with whatever chemical we used at work at the time, some really nasty stuff that is illegal now. I had my bosses permission to put my crank in the night before we were going to switch out the chemicals, the chemicals were kind of dirty and next morning they were absolutely black. But after that I found out it was cracked so never used it.

If you can get it clean without de-soldering and drilling out the plugs, i think that would be the best way. You do want to make sure you leave nothing in there to flake off and plug a oil port, especially if you will be using modern oils with detergent in them.

Well? I am in situation where the ports are plugged by hard old sludge/debris/corrosion. I try to prod them with steel wire and anything that I can fit in but to a certain deep and as port change direction. Used toluene and other toxic product but...
So it is a bit of damned if you do and damned if you don't kind of moment.
Oh well, I must give it a go at removing everything. Wish me luck !

I went a different way to remove the plugs, by welding a nut and using the heat to undo the plug.
Worked quite alright after several failed attempts. This one gave me some grief ! And I removed this from pin #2 !! The oil steel pipes off as well as, they are totally blocked. And I need to remove all the plus !! I thought that I could remove only plug of pin 2 and access pin 3 at the same time. Nope ! It is not drilled the same diameter all the way !! Like 10mm going to 5mm and to 10mm again ! So plug #3 must come off as well to clean the sludge. And #2 and #3 are the difficult one to remove....

Brian, save the bit of your impact driver. You will not move the plugs but twist the bit badly.

The last plug was the hardest, I had to use my TIG instead of MIG to weld the screwdriver onto that plug. Matter of fact I would recommend to use a TIG to remove them, for some reasons on two plugs it was really difficult to weld onto.
Anyway I am glad to have been able to remove them as the oil galleries were totally blocked. I dare to say that even you can see fluid passing by the holes, the conduits are still full of solidified crap.

Wow! A salutary lesson indeed. Thanks for posting. I shall worry now every time I exceed 3000 RPM

Oz singer wrote: ↑Fri Dec 10, 2021 8:25 am The last plug was the hardest, I had to use my TIG instead of MIG to weld

I like this guy "Oz singer". both TIG and MIG ! people make fun of me for having both types of welders, I might have to refer them to this thread next time they ask why I need both.

I think using the ultra sonic at work, I got everything out of mine but since it was cracked, never found out and not everyone has a commercial ultra sonic cleaner handy. I don't anymore. Based on the pictures, maybe Dave Hardwick knew something we didn't until we saw these pics.