Mikey Mason

I just bought a 1987 944.This car had been sitting for nearly a year awaiting the owner to repair some things...actually drove the car home..about a mile so.Afer a few weeks of cleaning etc. and just cranking it it developed what appears to be a severe oil leak...the oil seeming runs off the exhaust manifold.Nowhere can I see oil leaking above or below it.The motor is smoking some and needless to say when it is running the oil on the exhaust starts smoking up the joint.The oil is actually running down the exhaust manifold.I can see all of the area where the manifold is bolted to the engine and no sign of oil there..Any ideas??...Thanks in advance!

Michael

Thaddeus

Check 2 places:

(1) There's a flat cover plate, held on with 3 bolts, behind the cam tower (which looks like the valve cover on other cars). They loosen and leak. 10mm bolts.

(2) There is an oil channel that pumps pressurized oil up into the cam tower between the 3rd and 4th cylinder (the 2 nearest the firewall). Mine developed a leak there, and made TONS of smoke because of all the oil coming out. I had to thoroughly clean the area, run the engine, and locate the leak using a mirror on a stick. I couldn't see it unaided, you need the mirror.

~good luck~

Thaddeus

Greg Hammond

That sounds like the key. If the leak is in the "back" - it's probably the rear cam cover plate. If the leak is in the "middle" - it's probably a leaky cam tower gasket (the long gasket between the head and the cam box). Other than that, there's not much up top.

Greg

RJUSMC

I'm having the same problem. Just had a cylinder head gasket and cam tower gasket replaced. Now I've got billowing smoke from what appears to be right around the base of teh exhaust manifold, but no active oil leak. Where do I look next?

MG944

The factory cam box seal is a paper gasket and a thin one at that. Lindsey racing sells a special rubber coated steel gasket for this and a special gasket for the end cap also. Look up their cam box reseal kit. I'm doing this starting this week. Having the parts in hand they look to be of nice quality.

JohnKoaWood

9.25 years later, and still the same problems keep cropping up!



BTW, Thad hasn't owned a 944 in almost a decade, and I am sure the OPs car has been sold 3 or 4 times since this thread was new!

jcslocum

Funny ****e John!!!!


Just goes to show that he did a search on the problem and found something 10 years old. He must be given an Attaboy for that.

Aeropooch

Don't know if you found it yet, but you could also check the oil pan. If you see oil runs then it's either your rear main seal behind the flywheel, or the oil pan gasket. When your drive, the oil may drip down uttil the wind hits it and blow's it on your exhaust manifold...that's what happened to me. I changed the rear main seal when I did the clutch job, but now my oil pan gasket is leaking. lol-

9xauto

The next step is to tighten all the bolts around the cam tower. Just check the color of your exhaust manifold and you will find where the oil is coming from.

968 GUY

Did you two look at the dates on the posts?

sydneyman

they might be referring to this guy's post... or they might not...