RE: Amazing oil leak!

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Owen Lawrence" <owen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I have an oil leak problem, too.  I bought one of those little oil cans with
the pump on the lid and a tube where it squirts out.  It's an old-style kind
of thing.  Ever since I put oil in it a ring of oil has mysteriously
appeared underneath.  I've cleaned the dickens out of the outside and tried
to find a hole by letting it leak onto paper, but nothing.  I have to leave
it sitting in a dish or it messes everything around it.

The wierd thing is, after years of sitting in the dish it never leaks more
than a little bit.  If I clean it off, it leaks right away, but always only
that small amount.  I've been wondering if it might be defying gravity and
coming out the top somehow.  Now that I read this discussion I'm betting
that's what's happening.  So the question is, could there be a "standard"
solution to this problem, where maybe you add something that just wicks the
oil back to where it's supposed to be?

The oil is transmission oil.  Non-Hertzian transmission oil.  It's very
frustrating.

  - Owen -

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 9:34 PM
To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Amazing oil leak!


Original poster: "S&JY" <youngsters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

All,

Recently we read of one coiler's bad luck with a pole transformer leaking
oil up through an insulator, and how difficult it is to stop the leak.
Unfortunately, I can now top that with an even stranger oil leak.

I built a MOT 6-pack, with two MOTs each in 3 ammo cans.  Power into each is
an ordinary five foot length of 3-conductor power cord (typical Lowes orange
heavy duty power cord).  The outside sheath stops above the oil, and the
wires go under the oil to the transformer primary.

After a couple of months, I noticed an oil spot on my concrete floor, well
away from the ammo cans.  After musing for a while on how it got there, I
finally noticed it was coming out the plug from the 5 foot power cord!!
Somehow the oil wicks it way through 5 feet of power cord - yuck!  So for
now I elevate the plug and keep it wrapped in a rag.

The oil is the usual Shell transformer oil.  It must have some amazing
wicking and penetrating powers!  Any proven ideas on an additive that will
let gravity prevail and keep the oil from escaping, but not compromise its
insulative qualities?

--Steve Y.