Big Dave

I've had a very annoying oil leak from the front passenger side of my engine since I replaced the head last summer. All along I've believed it was coming from a stripped bolt hole that passes through the timing belt tensioner into an oil pathway in the block. I tried many times to seal that bolt with teflon tape, Yamabond, etc. None of it work.

Dennis (sueden), Andrew Olson and Dave (davek9) offered to help fix the problem last Saturday, thinking we'd be re-threading the hole. We found that Andrew was right...the stripped hole doesn't go to an oil pathway, but one does, so we put sealant on that one and hoped the leak was fixed.

Fast forward 4 days and the leak's still there, just as bad as before. I'm losing about 1 quart every 400 miles or so. I'm sick of it so I crawled under to start hunting elsewhere for the leak.

A/C compressor and air pump have been deleted. Everything is coated in oil from the cam covers down and back, probably due to the fan blowing it around. It's also dripping down from the tensioner, although it looks like the leaks there are only happening right after the engine is turned off.

For the last pic, I wiped the circled spot off and then ran the engine at 3k rpm for 10 seconds. The oil was back immediately.

Where is this leak coming from? Vote!

Mitch Johnson

Cam seals?

BC

That all looks very wet there. That is a fast leak, as you suggest.

There is no chance of it blowing UP, so it has to be going DOWN,

AO

Did you seal the cam bridge?

Big Dave

I think so

AO

Time to open her up...

Big Dave

Yep. I'll have to replace the cam cover gasket, the shaft seal and re-seal the bridge just to be sure. It would be silly not to get them all at the same time.

Adam Geist

For the oil to leak that quickly, it has to be coming from an area exposed to oil pressure. I agree with Andrew - pull the cam cover and reseal the front cam bridge.

BTW - is the timing belt dry?

Big Dave

Yes, it's dry.

soontobered84

My '89 had a pretty bad oil leak that others on this forum can attest to after I had my cam covers powdercoated. (Sean and Angela's driveway may never be the same) It turns out that when putting on the driver side cam cover, the front bottom cam cover bolt lost it's grommet/seal and I never knew it. I tightened every thing up and all appeared fine at idle, but as soon as I accelerated, the oil filled up the cam cover and ran out through that unsealed hole. Just a thought. YMMV. Good Luck

RyanPerrella

Dave,

Doesnt this engine have a couple years on it now since the rebuild?

For a leak like this to just now happen i think its doubtful something is simply missing. I would think its either the cam seal or the sealant on the cam bridge like Andrew mentions.

EDIT: Ok youve had the issue fromt he beginning. I bet its a dry cam bridge. Or a seal thats not fully seated. Time to pull the cam cover, remove the sprocket and dig in. If you find there is no sealant on that bridge (the type used for case halves loctite 574 I THINK THATS THE NUMBER) then chances are there is no sealant on any of the 4 bridge caps. I would then remove the rear bridge on the passener side and seal it up as well. Then you can decide if you wantto pull the drivers side cam's as well as they may also not have been sealed.

Hopefully its just a cam seal thats not fully seated.

aggravation

I just pulled my passenger side cover after having replaced all the gaskets and grommets etc. for the cam covers only a few hundred miles ago.

I could see once I removed the cover that he oil was getting past the new gasket and it would show up in that same spot. I think the cam chain slings the oil up into the under side of the cover pretty well and the gasket didn't seal well all the way around so I'll be sealing the gasket on both sides with black RTV this time instead of only doing the corners like the factory did originally. This time the slot the gasket sits in and the flat surface of the top of the heads, both places all the way around will get a bead of RTV.

I'm pretty sure it will stop the seepage.

heinrich

agreed with aggravation

Big Dave

It's been leaking since I dropped the engine back in last summer. It was out to replace the passenger side head. The driver's side is dry.

Best thing to do is to pull the cover and replace the gasket (re-used from 2nd engine pull, new after first), the cam seals (re-used from 2nd, new after first) and re-seal the bridges.

Anything else? I'll order the parts tomorrow, and I'd rather not pay for shipping twice.

Mrmerlin

Agg try using Yamabond, I think it will seal better, silicones dont seem to like oil/fuel