jwillman

The car has has an engine oil seep from the day I got her.

I had cleaned alott of the mess off when I first got her as I had an empty belt tensioner which I rebuilt.

I did an oil change at that time as well and have never had to add oil so the seep although messy is minor (not a daily driver).

Finally decided to address as it was seeping onto my alternator and as I wanted to address possible alternator issues I want to address the oil seap first as I know oiling my alternator is not a good think.

Since the oil seems everywhere I can't identify the exact source/s. It does seem to be something/s on the front side of the engine as I don't see oil beyond the front edge, see pic below.

I know each of the camshafts has a seal and an O ring as does the oil pump. I have seen the oil pump process in the WSM but can't find anything on the camshaft seal and O ring R&R.

I assume these can be replaced with the engine in. Any tips? Any other oil seals / O rings I should be addressing while I am here?

Ducman82

mine had the same leak but not as bad. it wast the cam seals...

joejoe

My '81 had leaks in all the places you have pictured (and a few more) To really clean the bay and address all leaks I bought a full gasket set from 928intl and pulled motor. 6 years and zero leaks.

jwillman

I would like to save pulling the engine for another time.

Are the camshaft seals doable in place, seems they should be? Is the procedure in the WSM and I just missed it?

Herman K

Replace the 2 camshaft seals, oil pump shaft and 3 bolt seals, front crankshaft seal and the gasket between to engine and tensioner.

Also make sure the oil pan gasket is not leaking.

All can be done with the engine in place and perhaps are done the same time when you do a TBW job

LT Texan

That looks like the cam tower gaskets right where the high oil pressure passages are.

Do you have the same at the rear of the other bank?

I would hate to try to replace that gasket without pulling the engine.

The stock gasket is crap.

Greg Brown has a aftermaket gasket that seals better.

Took me 3 times to get that right on mine. (Third with a very clean and dry install of Greg's gasket.) Also, would dimpling the aluminum in that area help gasket retention?

jwillman

I have no leaks for the back end of the engine. Really hard to tell about the oil pan gasket as that little bit of oil speads a long way.

The 4.5L engines have a different tensioner set up so no need for the gasket between tensioner and engine.

86'928S MeteorGrey

+1 on the cam tower gaskets. I had a '79 that used to fill the valley under the throttle body with oil. Replacement is doable in car... I'd start with the tower gaskets, cam and front crank seals. Then I'd hit the OPG when the MM need attention...

jwillman

I have no oil in the valley at all, bone dry!

Jadz928

I'm going thru the camseals right now...
https://rennlist.com/forums/9687964-post133.html

LT Texan

My cam tower leaks didn't go into the valley.

Rather trickled down the front left and back right sides down past the #4 and #5 exhausts.

Pagnobito

Getting the cam towers off with the AC lines in place is near impossible, you just can't get on the hex drive bolts by the suspension struts. I bought a 75mm long hex drive bit which is the right length to be a little proud of the came tower top to get a ratchet spanner on the end. My AC lines have been removed along with the captive bolt and it was still very difficult. You can just about get the PS lines out of the way to get to the various bolts on the other side.
I also couldn't get the rubber bungs out, they had gone really hard so had to fish around for them inside the towers after it had been removed, plus some of the bolts that fell off the hex bit inside the towers.
I shall remove the engine if I have to do it again.

gbgastowers

If it's a 79 he won't have a "and the gasket between to engine and tensioner". If it's the original tensioner, no oil fill holes or gasket between it and the block. Gunar

soontobered84

Jim,
On the Jalapeno, I had an oil seep/leak that I thought was the front cam seal. I replaced it and found that wasn't the leak. It ended up being the bottom front 2 bolts on the cam cover not being tight. The front one took about 2 hours to turn 2 full revolutions to tighten. The next one back took about 15 minutes to tighten about 3/4 of a turn to tighten. If I had a little stubby piece of allen wrench of the correct size that I could have put into a ratchet wrench I would have saved a lot of time. But that did fix my leak.

I might suggest that you very carefully determine where your leak is EXACTLY before you do a bunch of extra work.

jwillman

Job is completed and no additioanl leaks after 50 miles of driving.

I replaced both side camshaft snout seals and orings (both large and small one), crankshaft seal, oil pump seal and oring and installed the 3 orings and special washer on the oil pump bolts (not insyalled by PO)!!

I also repaled the large oring on the distributor stator drive. Hardest part of the job was getting all the orings and getting the right o rings as Porsche mad a change in o ring mid engine run for the 79 engines.