I have the engine back in the car after a year and a half of work and just installed the dipstick for the first time . It flops around! Looking at parts diagram I see an adapter tube that fits in the block that some PO probably left out. Can anyone tell me the length of this tube?
Photo attached showing tube.
Thanks
Bill;
To my knowledge my engine doesn’t have such a tube unless it is flush with the top of the hole in the block for the dip stick. The dip stick does move around if not put into the retainer attached to the manifold shield. My book (R Liggitt’s Series 11 E Type) doesn’t show the tube you have circled (39).
Regards, Joel.
According to the SNG diagrams the S2 has no such part, but the S1 does. I’ve honestly never noticed it before.
I replaced the dip stick tube on a 3.4 XJ6 engine , with one flush with the top , think the tube was a good 1 1/2 inches long !
You’ll need to add an additional 10 quarts of oil if you put one of those tubes in… I have NEVER seen such a thing on ANY E-type…
Regards,
Ray L.
Why would you need more oil? Doesn’t the tube get pressed in flush with the block?
I don’t have a E-type , but do have book’s , you can see the tube in this pic , and you can see the smaller diameter of the tube , where it slots in to the block .
XJ6 3.4 engine has more or less same tube , but with a bigger hole at the top.
39 in the first pic , look’s like the tube is flush with the block , so guess there is more then one kind !
!
The only dip stick tube for an XK engine I’ve seen extends about 2 inches above the hole in the cast iron block into which it’s inserted. I mistakenly bought one when I first bought my 2+2 back in 1996, thinking the engine needed one. The tube OD was too big to fit into the hole in the block.
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The tube is pressed into the block, but it does stick up about 3" above where the dipstick lands on the block, so if you have a non tube dipstick and you put it in a tube then the end of the dipstick will be correspondingly higher.
The saloons have them. I’m not sure why some models have them and others don’t.
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Ah, well that’s no good. It should sit even if anything and if it’s necessary to have a shoulder to prevent dropping in, a shoulder should just be bored into the block to receive it.
Geo;
Yes I do but different then yours.
My car is a model year 1970 and it has a SS shield over the exhaust manifold. There is a ‘wire’ retainer bolted to the rear exhaust manifold and the dip stick fits into a hook on the retainer wire.
Regards, Joel.
I had a 3.8 block , the tube was snapped off , I drifted the tube out from inside , cut the tube straight , and drifted it back in , it is a interference fit .
I do have a job to see the hole the dip stick fits into , on my MK2 , can see why they fit a long tube , as a guide , but with a E-type cant see , seeing the hole being a problem !
OK, I made some measurements and decided there is not room enough for a tube with my dipstick. My dipstick has an expanded region in the block contact area. I spread this a little and now have a tight fitting dipstick. Thanks for all the replies.
The S2 definitely didn’t come with a dipstick tube. The dipstick is C.30112 and has the plastic insert in the ring area on top. However the S1 4.1 manual shows a C.17522 tube along with a C.21251 dipstick. The 3.8 shows two different dipsticks, C.15641 superseded by C.21251, and no dipstick tube.
Richard Liggitt