Dip Stick Feature?

[mdtieszen]

My cub leaks oil out of the dip stick when working. The cub is a 1947 with the short oil tube. I believe it is splashing out rather than blowby. The oil pan is filled to the FULL line on the dip stick. Some dip sticks that I see on ebay have a small disc just below the breather like this.

Dipstick.JPG (25.82 KiB) Viewed 1635 times

Mine does not have this feature. Is the purpose of this little disc to keep oil from being thrown to the breather? Did some have it and some not? Is is possible that mine is missing and that is contributing to the oil leaking out?

Thanks for any ideas.

Mike

[RaymondDurban]

Every dipstick I've ever seen has had the disc. It doesn't provide a seal. As best that I know, it only serves to center the stick in the tube so that it'll read the same oil measurement any way that the stick may be installed.

[ricky racer]

The disk might serve a dual purpose. One as Raymond explained the other might very well be to serve as a damper to reduce the amount of splash that might travel up the tube to keep the oil from coming out the end of the tube.

[mdtieszen]

RRacer, I hope you are corret so some of the oil mess can be reduced. Does anyone have a closup of the disc and how it is attached to the dip stick? Should I try to find a junk dip stick and transfer the disc or better just to buy the whole thing (breather, stick and disc from somewhere)?

Thanks again.

[jrmartin1964]

The dipstick for my '49 also does not have the disc, nor does it appear that it ever had one. A look through the Parts Catalogs, and I came up with this:

"Breather Cap and Oil Gauge" (aka "Dipstick"):
TC-37A (5-2-49) - Part No. 251 362 R91: no disc illustrated; TC-37C (8-29-52) - Part No. 251 362 R92: disc is illustrated; both of these are the short dipsticks as used on engines with serials from 501 to 210189, which was superseded c.1957 at serial number 210190 by the longer type, Part No. 366 697 R91.

As originally produced, the Cub dipstick did not have the disc; this feature was added sometime between 1949 and 1952. My personal belief is that it was added by the IH engineers to minimize blow-by of oil from the crankcase up through the fill tube. Quite possibly dipsticks on the majority of the early Cubs were replaced when the newer style became available. It would be a fairly simple thing to have a disc welded to your dipstick, but the original early ones without it are seemingly scarce. However, if it were mine I would look around for a replacement of the later type which already has the disc on it. A quick search of the internet turned up several in the $30 to $40 range.

Jim

[Arthur Luke]

JP Tractor Salvage, a forum sponser, has them listed on their site for 10 bucks.

[Harold R]

I have a '48 without the disc and it doesn't leak any oil. It sounds like there's too much oil in the the crankcase or the filler tube was driven too far into the crankcase. Curious issue.

[Arthur Luke]

It is amazing how I can see, but not see. I have 2 '48's and 2 '49's without the discs and it did not even register. From my '52 and up the discs are there, so it's not like I shouldn't have known and I would have bet, before I looked, that they all had the disc.

[Bob McCarty]

Art, I don't know about you, but I'm always looking at the far end to check the oil. I'll guess I'll have to pull a few and see what I have.

Bob

[mdtieszen]

jr'64- Thank you for clearing this up. My cub SN is #733 and the top of the stick is not marked or scratched at all.....no evidence of anything ever being attached. So, safe to assume that this cub's dip stick never had the disc.

Arthur- I'll check wth JP Tractor Salvage for thiers. If that doesn't work, I'll have to get on fleabay.

Harold R- The fact that you have a short tube, no disc and no oil leaking may be a bad sign for me. I'm really hoping it isn't blowby since I just put the cub back together. The cylinders were within spec for .040 over. I replaced the rings. It used to smoke quite nicely, haha, out the stack but since back together, it stopped smoking. My oil is right at the FULL line. I think if the tube were pushed in too far, it would be underfilled with oil at the FULL mark. Could it be that the tube wasn't pushed all of the way in? I didn't have the oil filler tube out so don't have any idea how far it is supposed to be pressed.

Here is how I'll proceed: Go ahead and get a proper dip stick with the disc. In the meantime, I'm goign to run the cub without the dip stick and see if oil is being thrown out and also maybe get some read on blowby. If getting thrown out, I'll try draining some of the oil. If that doens't do it, I'll have to live with oil running all over the blade and dripping in the garage after working it. Maybe a big cork to replace the dip stick? The tube from the crankcase to the air cleaner should handle a reasonable amount of blowby, right?

Thanks again for all of the help.

[Bob McCarty]

If you filled the crankcase by volume, not the dipstick reading, I'd advise against draining any out. You might end up low doing that.

Bob

[danovercash]

If the tube from the block to the breather is clogged, then no fresh air going IN the dipstick breather. Yeah, I know it's a very small amount.

[Barnyard]

I just pulled the dipsticks on two 47's and five 48's. The two 47's had no disc and two of the 48's had none. Three of the 48's had the disc.

If yours was broke off it would definitely be noticeable.

[mdtieszen]

Barnyard, Nice pix, thanks. That confirms that my '47 never had a disc on the dip stick.

Mike

[PVF1799]

Like Art - my 1948 does not have the disk - the 1955 does have it. Never noticed oil out of the dipstick, except blow-by.