Okay, let's get all the "baffled" jokes out of the way first. Settled down? Good...
By baffle, I mean the fitting of extra metal baffles or plates in the oil sump. When you brake VERY hard from high speed on a disk-braked Cortina, you may find the oil-pressure light coming on. (I was never able to achieve this on a drum-braked model). What is happening is that the car is slowing down, but the oil is continuing to travel forwards at high speed. It "climbs" up the front of the engine, leaving very little in the deepest part of the sump. This means that the oil pick-up pipe may suck in some air instead of oil. You see the oil pressure light come on for a moment or two. As you reduce speed, the oil drops back into the sump and the oil pickup pipe is again immersed in oil. I'm told the same thing can happen on very fast cornering, but I'm not that brave.
What can be done?
I found this sketch in Speedsport's "Tuning Four Cylinder Fords" published in 1971. It states that all four plates shown shaded below, should be welded in. I'm a bit baffled by this (sorry) as the 1500cc sump already has the front vertical plates fitted as standard. (I've just checked an old 1200cc engine. Its sump has both vertical plates as standard). The larger horizontal plate could be a problem, as the oil pickup pipe and large round filter has to sit in this area.
To simplify things, I welded in a single plate, as shown below. I don't go racing, but this cured the problem I had in the very early-1970s with a well souped-up 1500. I did the same on my G.T. about 10 years ago, and I've just done the same thing again on another engine I'm building. The problem has not returned. Or maybe I'm just getting older and much slower...
IMPORTANT:- Check that you have access for the dip-stick before bolting it all back together!!!
Page created:- October 03, 2006