Koenig-Specials 928

Appeared soon after manifold R&R. No coolant or vacuum leaks. Car runs & idles great. The oil ACCUMULATES in two small crevices in front of the engine just below the thermostat housing (on both sides) then overflows below.
How do I know this? I cleaned the engine & stuffed shop towels in these two crevices (one on left is quite deep). After one week of driving the shop towels were soaked with oil and the bottom half of the engine remained dry & free of oil.
Any ideas where it originates from? Could it be from the oil filler housing? I did install a new gasket with the R&R project.

Please and thanks again for any assistance.

Koenig.

atb

The rubber gasket between the oil fill neck and block opening isn't seated?

IcemanG17

x2

chaadster

If it isn't the gasket atb suggests, could it be the breather tube that attaches there? Maybe you forgot to connect it, or it came undone sometime in the shuffle.

WICruiser

On my '85 there is a baffle plate between the oil filler housing and the block so there are two surfaces to seal. I am not sure of the later models have the same plate but if you removed the housing and didn't realize there were two sufaces to seal the one that was disturbed but not resealed could be leaking.

Regardless of where in the connection the leak is I think you need to remove the oil filler to identify the problem area and seal it up. The source may become obviouse during the disassembly process.

Bill Ball

And to do that you need to remove the intake again. You don't need to COMPLETELY remove it, just remove the fuel rails and the manifold bolts and elevate the manifold - you can leave all the vacuum lines cables and wires attached. That should allow you to view the breather lines on the filler neck and MAY allow you to remove and reseat/replace the seal in the neck.

Koenig-Specials 928

Thank you everyone. I was hoping that Bill was wrong when he wrote,"And to do that you need to remove the intake again", yet again I knew that was wishful thinking on my part. So guess what I'll be doing this weekend?

Thanks again folks.

Koenig

SwayBar

Bill, there is no need to remove any of the above to remove the oil filler neck. All one needs to do is remove the water manifold; once done, the oil filler neck and it's components are easily accessible.

atb

If it does turn out to be the rubber gasket, what I've done in the past is use just a little bit of sealer in the part of the channel where the gasket hangs loose. I think what happens is the portions of the gasket that aren't held in place by the cast in "pinchers" tend to pop out of the channel while you have the oil neck inverted and are putting it in position. You end up sandwiching the exposed gasket between the two mating surfaces and that gap makes all the mess.

If decide to give this a try, just use a very small dab of sealer in the channel under the gasket at the four points where the gasket is not held in place. There should not be enough sealer to ooze around to the sealing surface when torqued, just to hold the gasket up. (Let the gasket do its job).

Good luck, it goes much faster the second time around.

Bill Ball

Yes, that's an alternative. That's never been touched on my car. If he does that, he will need new seals for that. Actually, I find the manifold easy to get up in the air, but your way is probably faster.

SwayBar

As an alternative to Adam's 'neat' suggestion, I've gone the 'sloppy' route and use that blue HyloMar stuff which never really dries, and I apply it to the entire mating surface on the block for the oil filler neck, and never had an oil leak.

If it's never been off, I agree it's a good idea to replace all three. However, I've got some fairly new ones which I've reused several times now, and used the HyloMar on the gaskets and surfaces which mate to the head.

Hmm, I guess I like using that stuff; I got the idea from using it on the cam housings on the ends of the heads, and on those black cam plugs on the ends of the heads, all of which never leaked any oil.

I do too, but I always seem to have trouble sealing/drying up all the fuel line fittings, so I try really hard to leave them alone once sealed!

Shark Attack

that blows!, well by the time you are done you wil be the expert in the intake removal in installation!

Best of luck to you!

atb

Just a word of caution if you pull the water bridge, stick with the rubber gaskets (seals) on the contact surfaces. Unless they are visibly damaged, you can probably reuse them. There is a replacement gasket made of paper, which is very inexpensive, but will not on its own seal the ends. Maybe the paper gasket isn't intended to be used alone, but in conjunction with the worn rubber gasket (I've seen a motor come apart with this set up), but regardless, I would make sure that the rubber gasket (old or new) is in the mix somewhere unless you happen to have a showercap handy when you twist the key on start up.

Bill Ball

I use Hylomar a lot as well. That or Yama/Honda/Three-bond. They are all non-hardening sealers that are great for coating gaskets.

Koenig-Specials 928

Oh my! So much info. This is great. Thanks for the entire discussion. I really didn't want to disturb the manifold because I got it right the first time with no leaks and a rock steady idle. I will go the route of the water manifold. Thanks again

Koenig