Daniel5691

Hi !
1981 euro s 5 spd

I finally have progressed to the point of being able to inspect the site of my oil leak.
It's hard not to get frustrated when you only have a few minutes each day to work, but slow and steady....

So now the cam towers are off. The first obvious clue is the presence of a
unique fastener at the location of the leak....



There was a stud, a nut, and no washer.
Also please note in the next image below the dark brown "goo" at the interface between cam tower and cylinder head. This was not present on the non-leaking driver's side.





Inspection with the parts separated revealed these details...


Please note the oiil 'pooled' near the leak site. I am uncertain of the significance, if any. I would appreciate insight on this finding.

Other images for your inspection and comment..






I have ordered a stud extractor, and I plan on meticulously cleaning the mating surfaces for a closer look of course.

A few initial questions come to mind:

1) is there any significance to the pooled oil?
2) is there an oil channel which may have been plugged by PO with all the dark tarry sealing goo? If so, could such a blockage have created a high-pressure constriction for oil flow between head and tower that contributed to the leak? (It was gushing like an aortic laceration..)
3) do I need to assess the mating surface for flatness before proceeding with eventual reassembly, and if so, what is acceptable from a measurement standpoint?

Thanks
Dan

LT Texan

Clean it up.

Install Greg Brown's gaskets on clean surface.

What a mess.

Ducman82

nasty stuff in there... BLECH. someone run Pennzoil in there? :-)

odd about the stud.. maybe someone has been in there before and lost a bolt... and had to improvise?

Dave928S

1. The heads only have one drain chimney, which is at the other end, so the pooling at that location oil is quite normal.

2. A channel hasn't been blocked. Cleaning off the brown goo should reveal if there was some irregularity they were trying to seal up/even out.

3. Get the surfaces perfectly clean and then post some more pics. Rather than trying to measure flatness, you could smear some bearing blue on the clean cam box surface, and then sit it on the clean head surface, and see what contact pattern you get.

4. Definitely use Greg Browns improved gaskets.

linderpat

Can't help on the technical here, but looking at your avatar Dan, I'd say Ducman is gonna get ya, but he already checked into this thread and didn't whack you, so I guess you're ok

Daniel5691

Ed,
Ducman already beat me to a pulp ! !
My fingers are broken now and I can't reset my avatars any more.
I also have a big knot on my head like Sylvester the cat on Looney Tunes.
Never mess with Ducman.


Dan

ltoolio

Sooo...the PO installed that stud to compress the tower to the head in the hope of stopping the leak?

Daniel5691

Ryan...

that's exactly what I am wondering.
I really think this is a repeat of a prior leaking issue,
because there are gobs of some sort of sealant in that same area that leaked for me.

But I don't know If it was a head issue or a cam tower issue, or just poor gasket sealing to begin with......that stud-to-replace-a-missing bolt is burrowed down into the head,
and I am just wondering what I will find next...

Dan

Daniel5691

Failed to note initially that there were healthy doses of a thread-locker
all over the upper and lower cam tower bolts, my understanding is that
these should be installed with a slight amt of engine oil only?

Dan

LT Texan

None of that can fix the crappy Porsche gasket.