For some time now the old Darmah has shown a slight oil leak on the front of the clutch cover down by where the ignition wires exit the casing. It's always tough to place exactly from where as oil gets spread about but it was both on the underside of the casing & it's topside by the starter motor. Likely candidates were the ignition wire gland nut and or the lower casing bolt where there is an oil feed and small o ring. So rather than just remove & replace the casing with a new gasket & threebond I decided to upgrade the clutch with a Surflex. Anyway... when I removed the casing I noticed quite a bit of oil in the starter motor recess with oil also on & in the starter motor itself. Further inspection showed the start motor shaft seal in the casing had well and truly collapsed. Hard, brittle & split and I don't ever recall replacing this so I reckon it was at least 40 years old Had to disassemble the starter motor to give it a proper clean - note the two shims bottom right. Well these were loose in the casing and not on the armature shaft to take up any float Luckily they are magnetic so seemed to be held against the casing and not free to cause lord knows what damage.... me's a lucky boy. So who was the idiot who assembled it incorrectly then... erm, ahem, cough
