It seems on certain days, they just feel like being smokey.
They're British. They're not only British, they're
old British. The joke among people who own things like Series Land Rovers and old MGs and Austin Healey's and whatnot is that they use what we call the total-loss lubrication system. This is an absolutely brilliant, albeit messy, way to lubricate an engine. The idea is this---
The engine is designed to leak oil. Maybe not when it's brand new, but that's simply because the seals and gaskets haven't reached the right condition yet. Once they have, the engines leak like sieves. Which means you as the operator have to keep pouring new oil in. Which means the oil in the engine is constantly being renewed. Which is very, very good for the engine if not for your driveway (or bilge).
The Ford Dorset diesel, the base engiine for the FL120, is from this era. Ironically the total-loss system isn't working on the engines in our boat which, other than the ubiquitous gasket leak from one of the lift pumps which we finally got around to dealing with the other year, don't leak any oil at all.
I attribute this to the fairly low number of hours on the engines (about 3,000) and the possibility that whoever assembled the engine in Dorset, England back in 1973 screwed up and used the wrong kinds of gaskets and seals. We bought the boat in 1998 and to date the oil consumption of both engines has remained the same-- less than one quart every 100-150 hours which is our oil change interval.
But we continue to hope that the day will arrive when our two Lehmans begin leaking properly so we can finally start enjoying the lubrication benefits of the total-loss system.