zimrok

Hey, first post on here after reading for several months. Great board and I'm happy to be a new member of the community.

So the story goes, I bought a 1986 951 a couple of months ago. Oil pressure has always kicked on the red light at idle and does jump to 4-5 bar on startup. After a few months of driving, started to notice some oil on the floor of the garage. Then more oil. Then more... Put the thing up on ramps and did some serious investigation. What I found was undeniably oil leaking out of the (old-style) OPRV, oil leaking from a bolt holding the thermostat housing, and now what appears to be a blown camshaft tower cover gasket. Planning on replacing all of these gaskets, (I'll attempt to do a nice little tutorial w/ pictures), bought a new one-piece OPRV, and am planning to go with the Cometic MLS camtower gasket from Lindsey Racing, as I believe my oil pressure issues have caused the paper gasket to blow out.

Anything else I should be on the lookout for? Possibly oil pump, or replacement of the actual thermostat housing apart from just the seals? Seems to me that if oil is actually leaking from the OPRV bolt, there might be some sort of strippage that has occurred on the threads. Thanks for your responses!
-Cory

mytrplseven

I'm a huge proponent of spending a few bucks on a flourescent dye tracer kit from the autoparts store. They're cheap and worth their weight in gold. You pour some in the oil (also for power steering, coolant and brake leaks) then drive the car for a few hundred miles to circulate the oil. Clean the area of heavy dirt before you start, and then, using the "magic" glasses and the special flashlight, start looking around for the highlighted line leading to the source of the leaks.

zimrok

I've thought about this, but the leak is so severe that I don't really think I've got even ten drivable miles in the thing as it is, especially since the juice is now leaking onto the headers. KABOOOOM! Definitely something I'm planning on doing once I get the Valdez under control!

mytrplseven

In that case the source of the leak should become readily appearent in short order with the motor running for maybe a half hour.

Lemons racer

Save the money on the Lindsey gasket mine leaked like a sieve. The stock paper one works just fine . That gasket was developed for there solid lifter cam setup so you could remove the cambox multiple times while setting the valve clearances.