Diagnosing the Oil Leak - Cam Seals

[fiasco]

Took the pulleys off and this is what I see:






To me, the seals look like they're ll right. They are dry - no oil on them or below them as if it were leaking at that location.

I also discovered that there really is no oil on the backs of the cam pulleys. There is, however, lots of oil on the tops of the cam pulleys - that is the toothed part where the belt rides. I can't find any way that oil would migrate onto the tops of the pulleys, and am now wondering if the oil is somehow getting onto the belt, and traveling up the belt to the pulleys, and then the pulleys are flinging the oil all over the engine bay.

The one thing I am sure of, by direct observation, is that the cam pulleys (or the timing belt maybe) are flinging oil when the engine is running. I also have oil on the underside of the hood. I have no oil spots on the floor under the engine, but do have oil spots on the floor at the front of the car where it runs down to the front of the hood and drips off there.

A buddy of mine was over this morning and looked at things. He suggested that maybe my oil pump gasket, or the spot where the oil-gauge-idiot-light sensor screws into the oil pump are leaking under pressure and the oil is spraying onto the belt and traveling up from there. However, it seems to me that if the oil pump were a source of a significant leak, I would have oil dripping on the floor right under the pump, but I don't.

Before you ask, my cyclonic trap is clean, and my crankcase breather vents to atmosphere beneath the car.

Open to suggestions.
-- se

[kilrwail]

What about your crankshaft main seal? Is it new and properly seated? It's justa question - I have no particular basis for asking except the symptoms you've described. It would leak under pressure.

[fiasco]

What about your crankshaft main seal? Is it new and properly seated? It's justa question - I have no particular basis for asking except the symptoms you've described. It would leak under pressure.

New - and should be properly seated. Several people looked it over when it was installed (Ron, Alvon, Ryan, Gary) so I'm pretty confident in that. Wouldn't be able to say 100% without taking the whole #$!@* thing apart to look at it. Really don't want to do that.

-- se

[fiasco]

I put it all back together and started it up to try to search for the source of the oil again. It is still doing the same thing - oil flings off the driver's side cam pulley in small droplets. If I hold a piece of paper above the pulley, I can see the line of droplets that are thrown onto the paper, so I am absolutely sure that there is oil being flung off the driver's side pulley. I don't see the same thing off the passenger side pulley.

So I tried to look closely while it was running to see if I could see oil coming from somewhere down lower and getting on the belt. I couldn't see anything. I guess it could be coming from somewhere around the aux shaft or crankshaft - those areas are hard to see with the engine running. The thing is, I don't have oil on the floor under the engine. The only places I have oil are 1. all over the top of the engine and stuff in the engine bay, and 2. on the floor under the front of the hood where oil that has gotten on the underside of the hood has run down and dripped off the front of the hood. If the leak was at the oil pump, aux shaft or crankshaft, it seems like I'd be getting oil on the floor.

I don't see oil leaking from the cam covers or the cam towers, and even if it was, I don't see any way that oil leaking from those places would get onto the cam pulleys or timing belt in order to get flung off the driver's side pulley. And nothing is leaking from the oil filler cap.

-- se

[kilrwail]

Can you clean the area immediately below the crank seal (from below), then run it for a minute, then check whether it's wet there afterwards? Ditto the aux shaft seal. I know they may be difficult to reach.

[fiasco]

Yeah - I need to do that. I'll put it up on the ramps tomorrow so it's easier to get to. I may try that talcum power trick that someone posted on another thread.

Too much time with my head in the engine bay today.

-- se

[lanciahf]

This is probably not it but just in case.

Some 1800 have crank pulleys that ride further in the front crankshaft seal cover plate. Not the single crank pulley of the early 1800, but the middle years that still have the alternator on the exhaust side of the motor. This model of 1800 uses a crank pulley with three belt guides but rides further in the crank cover plate. I think if you put a later style 1800 crank shaft pulley (alternator on the drivers side) with the early style front crank cover, this will cause a leak. Sorry for the confusing description but I remember from your engine swap there was talk of where to mount the alternator and you might have mismatched the crank pulley with the front crank cover plate.

[lanciahf]

Never mind about my last post. Looking over your old thread you replaced an early 1800 with a late 1800. I doubt the crank pulley cover would be causing this unless the seal was not properly seated.

[ventura ace]

Steve,
Could it be that the oil is leaking out the front, bottom of the cam tower (or cylinder head) and dripping onto the tensioner bearing, where it gets on the belt, and is flung off as it comes up and around the cam pulleys? I can't explain why it would be more on the DS than PS, unless air currents come into play somehow to boost the flinging. If this is happening, my guess would be the cam tower gasket is the source of the leak, and not the head gasket. We know that we had an issue with getting enough torque on the cam tower bolts. That might explain what appears to be a brown stain in your picture of the DS cam tower, and the oil that was pooling in the cavities around the 2 front cylinder head bolts.

BTW, in your mention of the 'oil pump', I think you're referring to the oil filter pedestal, right??? The oil pump is inside the oil pan (and is very wet, but won't cause the outside of the engine to get wet). If the oil pedestal is getting wet, it could be oil dripping from the front of the cam tower, as mentioned above. Or, it could be coming from either of the sensors that are threaded into the pedestal, or from the gasket behind the pedestal. There are some differences in the gaskets for the different engine blocks and pedestals -- I didn't see it being assembled on your engine, but I assume you checked visually to see that those items matched up all right????

Alvon

[baltobernie]

This may sound dumb, but ...

Don't forget that oil in the dipstick tube has some genuine velocity to it; several owners have found out the hard way when they didn't seat the dipstick or ran the engine without one. The little rubber seal at the top deteriorates with age, and the location sounds about right - near the driver's side cam pulley.

[pope]

I see you went for the Barbie cam seals.

[fiasco]

Alvon - I have been suspicious of the cam towers because of the torque issue, but whenever I gt a good look at them, I just don't see anything that looks like oil coming from that location. The area right below the cam towers on the front of the head is basically oil free, just like the area around and below the seals. In fact, there is less oil on any of the highly suspect locations than there is anywhere else.

Yes, I meant the pedestal and not the pump. I looked closely at that with the engine running yesterday afternoon, thinking that it may be the source, especially if there was a leak under pressure, that it might have been spitting oil onto the belt from the gasket or the idiot light sensor location. While there is oil on and around the pedestal, I could not tell if it was the source of a leak, or if it was just from the oil that is everywhere else running down to that location. I do not have oil spots on the floor below the filter/pedestal, so if it is leaking it is being very selective and leaking onto the timing belt without dropping any oil on the ground.

Bernie - I have checked the dipstick several times. It is threaded in as far as it will go, with some RTV sealer around the top. Again, no significant oil below that spot that would indicate it's leaking there. And the top end of the dipstick looks good - the rubber fits snugly in the top of the tube, and I don't see any oil coming from there as the engine runs.

Pope - not sure what you mean by Barbie cam seals. These are the ones that came with the seal kit that I bought from Mark.

-- se

[ventura ace]

It's about a 2 hour drive, and a beautiful day, --- if you want to drive it up here, I'll help you find the leak.

A

[pope]

Pink!

[rlux4]

Ace, if (A) Steve drives it up to your place, and if (B) you can make it possible to see it from the hot tub, count me in.
Ron