Zinc plating

[NigelW]

This is the bowl when I took it off with the residual sludge in it, a bit of a design fault on XK engines.

[Orlando St.R]

Yes, it is really annoying. Wonder why they did that?

[cass3958]

I suppose they had to give the bottom crank pulley room to rotate with the chain on but also had to get the sump over the top of the cross member.
They could have lowed the centre of the cross member but had ground clearance problems or raised the engine and had bonnet clearance problems.
A compromise I suppose between the two and they did not consider a little bit of dirty oil left behind would matter that much but it does.

[Orlando St.R]

They did not consider a little bit of dirty oil left behind would matter that much but it does.

Agreed!