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installing a new oil pressure gauge line in the galaxie 500!

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installing a new oil pressure gauge line in the galaxy 500! I.

i found the cause of the oil leak in the galaxie and determined i could remove the broken line without draining the oil so i installed the new line that i purchased at our local auto parts store for 10 bucks.

there wasn’t much space to work, so i lucked out when i discovered the new part just screwed into the old part directly attached to the engine block. it would have been tricky to remove.

installing a new oil pressure gauge line in the galaxie 500! II.

the other end of the line attaches to the oil pressure gauge mounted under the dash. i attached the line with a new appreciation for the fact that this means i’m pumping pressurized oil into the cabin of the car. what could possibly go wrong!

i started the car and was happy to not find oil leaking out of the gauge and all over the floor 🙂

success! the pressure seems about right while the car is idling, though i wonder if i’m supposed to bleed the air out of the line. i’m not sure how to do that without getting oil all over the place so good enough for now!

part of the reason why i love having a 50 year old car is that i can fix many things on my own without needing fancy computers or equipment.

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296/365. calling all gearheads!

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296/365. calling all gearheads!

i’m giving away a major clue to what really happened with the leaking oil but i need an answer now before i can write up a proper post 🙂

i think i know the answer to this, buuuuuuut, can i remove the oil pressure line without draining the oil and not get a pool of oil on the ground? the line is maybe a third of the way up on the engine block right next to the oil filter. the engine is cold and all the oil has drained to the bottom of the engine and the oil pan so i think the answer is yes?

update: response back from social media is that i shouldn’t loose much oil if any by removing the line without draining the oil.

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i found the cause of the oil leak in the galaxie!

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i found the cause of the oil leak in the galaxie! I.

i’m troubleshooting the leaking oil in the galaxy 500 and my first thought is that a deteriorated valve cover gasket is causing the problem. the engine exhaust doesn’t smell sweet and there’s no oil in the radiator fluid so it’s unlikely to be a head gasket issue.

when i went to the local auto parts store, the guy behind the counter said he’d love to sell me a valve cover gasket ( only $20 ) but asked if i had tightened down the valve cover bolts recently.

“uh, nope. and to be honest i couldn’t remember when i would have thought to tighten them.”

“give it a try. i’ve seen valve covers so loose that oil starts seeping out.”

i went home and sure enough the valve cover bolts were so loose that i almost couldn’t believe the covers stayed on! i was sure that had to be the cause of the leak since the oil seemed to be coming in out of the bolt hole that had one of the loosest bolts. it couldn’t be a coincidence!

so i tightened the bolts, cleaned up the oil that leaked on the block and started the engine.

the result? the oil was pouring out of the same area faster than ever! what was going on? i couldn’t quite tell because it was hard to watch the oil leak and start the car at the same time but it didn’t take too long to figure it out.

i found the cause of the oil leak in the galaxie! II.

while i was poking around i discovered this line appeared to be completely severed! it wasn’t obvious at all that it was severed because it was running through the clip attached to the bolt that seemed to be the main source of the leak. i turned the engine over and sure enough oil came spurting out of the lower section of line that emerged from the engine block. the line looked like it went into the main cabin bundled with a few other lines. i wondered why pressurized oil would be going into the main cabin and it took me a few seconds to come to the rather obvious conclusion.

it’s the line for the after market oil pressure gauge that sits under the dash. it must have developed a small crack right under the clip that held it in place and i broke it completely when i cleaned up the oil around the bold holding the clip.

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this guy took a photo of a ferrari from a galaxy 500 and you won’t believe what happened next.

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this guy took a photo of a ferrari from a galaxy 500 and you won’t believe what happened next. I.

as i was leaving our local food coop, a ferrari ( perhaps a ferrari 360 which was produced between 1999 and 2005? ) pulled in which is notable because i’ve never seen one in almost 10 years in the area. someone passing through on a saturday drive? or maybe it belongs to a local who has had it in storage for 10 years after they learned why you absolutely can’t drive a ferrari every day?

it’s a handsome car, sure, though i’ve never been that into ferraris except for a brief period in the early 80s when i thought magnum P.I. was a pretty cool dude driving around in his.

this guy took a photo of a ferrari from a galaxy 500 and you won’t believe what happened next. II.

it occurs to me that i’m taking the picture from a 1965 ford galaxy 500 which i find amusing on about 10 different levels. am i driving an old ford today because i thought magnum p.i. was cool when i was a preteen and somehow over space and time the early imprinting of coolness morphed into me buying the old ford 15 years ago? who knows! and in the history of photography there has probably never been a photograph of an early 2000 ferrari 360 from 40 year older galaxy 500. i find this a little mind blowing for reasons that i can’t quite articulate.

while my mind is blowing, i smell a smell that’s not a smell one wants to smell while an engine is running. burning. AND THEN OH MY GOD WISPS OF SMOKE COMING FROM THE ENGINE.

but they’re smallish wisps and i’m only 4 blocks from home so i make what’s probably the wrong decision and put it in drive.

this guy took a photo of a ferrari from a galaxy 500 and you won’t believe what happened next. III.

thankfully, i got home without anything catching on fire and popped the hood to find what looks oil leaking from the valve covers. while i was blowing my mind, the old ford blew a gasket? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

it’s a little hard to tell but it looks like the leak is coming through the screw in the left side of the valve cover and along the space between the valve cover and cylinder head. so if i’m lucky, maybe it’s a leaking valve cover gasket? or maybe a head gasket going bad?