Christer

I have over the last couple of days noticed that the car now leaves a few penny sized oil drops on the driveway. The (main) leak is situated at the bottom right hand side of the engine as you look at it from the rear. It definitely didn't do this 2 months ago - mind you I have been driving harder and faster recently so I guess it is no surprise.

The car is booked in for some bits and pieces early August, so I will ask JZM to have a look while I am there. With any luck perhaps I can really justify some expenditure to myself!!

Christer

Riccardo

Christer,

So are you preparing yourself for a top end rebuild? It will only be around the £5k mark...

Adrian

Dear Christer,
The oil leaks will never fix themselves. They will only get worse. I feel and engine and transmisison drop and a final repair coming on,
Ciao,
Adrian
911C4

neil williams

I often wonder what proportion of 911s, be they 964s or otherwise, suffer from oil leak to a greater or lessor degree.

A leak free 911 seems to be the holygrail of Porsche ownership, sort by so many, achieved by so few?

When I am at home, I look at my own leaking 964 (which leaks slightly more oil than my previous 81SC), contemplate the re-build, compare the cost to the cost of the oil I am topping up, and realise that as it does not compromise the performance, the engine runs just fine, that the economics do not stack-up, given that there seems to be a high probability it will leak again .

Does this approach make sense, or am I blinded by a misplaced belief that a large proportion of these cars leak oil?

Views?

cheers

Neil
90C4

Christer

I don't think the oil consumption is down to anywhere near the accepted limits but will keep an eye on it closely over the next 1000 miles. The spots on the driveway alerted me more than anything else.

The money is not so much of a problem - it is the decision on what to do while I am there. I would definitely be tempted to do a 3.8 and perhaps upgrade the con rods, valve springs and engine bolts as well as the upgraded gaskets etc. - but I am getting off track. I will put on hold the suspension upgrade until this has been investigated. Perhaps I will aim to have this done early next year as that is when the service is due anyway.

I have now just seen Neil's post above and would agree that if the oil consumption is within limits I think it is perfectly adequate to keep monitoring and adding oil. Personally, this issue will be at the back of my mind though and am willing to open the wallet at some stage to fix it.

I'll keep you posted..... <img src="graemlins/crying.gif" border="0" alt="[crying]" />

DaveK

Hi,
I think these things are catching. Over the last couple of weeks there have been oil spots on my driveway that were never there before.

I'll also have to see how much mine is leaking - it looks pretty minor so far. The thing that would really put me off spending lots on a top end rebuild to fix it would be that my car had one just before I bought it and that was only 10K miles ago. I'm not spending £5K on an engine rebuild that only fixes oil leaks for 10K miles until it seriously leaks!

Dave
90 C4

Christer

Blimey, Dave! I guess that 'rebuild' was not very well done then...? Who did it?

christian

DaveK

Christer,
Rebuild was Jaz. The car is at GT-One next week for it's almost monthly visit so will get them to see where the leaks are coming from.

There was a thread recently (in the Lounge I think) and someone said something like "imagine having a car that didn't break down.... how boring it would be"...

I imagine it every time something goes wrong and I don't think it would be boring at all!

Dave
90 C4
(with an oil leak which I'm sure is so small it's not worth mentioning)

Riccardo

Dave we've had some good comments on Jaz, but perhaps their engine rebuilding skills are up to much...

As for 911s leaking oil (Neil), I don't think its as much of an epidemic as some think. I know mine doesn't leak a single drop, not even when it was parked for 4 weeks on the same spot. Of course its only got 59k miles so this could change when it has 110k miles. However, most of the 964s I've seen don't leak and certainly none of the 993s. Perhaps some of the earlier models might be leaking, but most are now over 20 years old!

DaveK

I should probably add that I wasn't suggesting that Jaz had made a bad job of the rebuild. I have a receipt showing that they carried it out and I was told when I bought the car (not from them) that the main reason for the rebuild was to solve oil leaks (although at 119K it probably did it good anyway).

But I've never dealt with Jaz myself so don't know exactly what the terms of the rebuild were - and at the moment, I don't even know exactly where it's leaking from.

Dave
90 C4

Bill Wagner

My two cents on oil leaks are as follows:

FIND THE SOURCE!!!

It's one thing to have a slight seepage from a junction between, say the cylinders and the engine block, and another thing all together to have an oil line or seal in the process of failing on you. Most leaks will likely be caused by the latter, and it's that way with nearly every car...they get old (and our cars ARE old) and they start to leak.

<img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

Jeff Curtis

I'll echo Christian's remarks on the possibility of the leaks being from the camshaft "O"-rings. I have replaced the timing chain cover gaskets and still have the same problem.

Remaining are the timing chain housing to engine case gaskets, the camshaft housing "O"-rings and the camshaft "thrust plate" three-holed triangular-shaped paper gaskets. I tend to think it's the "O"-rings as what Christian said.

The color changes he mentions is from the green "O"-rings that get hard over time to the orange "Viton" material "O"-rings...they stay supple for MUCH longer, as discovered by Porsche when they changed to Viton gasket kits in the 90s.

I'm not sure whether the 3.6 964 engines were assembled with Viton (orange) "O"-rings or not...but I'll find out soon enough as I'm about sick of the leaking and the next time I have the engine out - I'm going to change the remaining gaskets out. <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" />

neil williams

Bill is of course right, I know where my leak is and the OPC says it is not terminal, but it is terminally annoying

I have all the seals required to fix my leak, infact I think I have the full set for the top end and cylinder removal as my leak is at the base of one cylinder.

The head mechanic at the OPC where I go is of the belief that my leak was caused by a combination of the undertray, the routing of the left hand side exhaust and high temperatures. He said that he has seen many leaks like mine on cars that had come from Singapore (mine has), Japan and Hong Kong to New Zealand and speculated that a combination of sitting in traffic and high ambient temperatures "cooks" the seals and that he had not seen the same problems on NZ new cars.

Cheers

Neil 90C4

Christer

Thank you for your comments. The car is booked in and JZM will do the following:

1. Check 'moaning clutch' (hope the car doesn't hide the sound from the mechanics again!

2. Investigate oil leak(s)

3. MOT

4. Fit rear 4 pot calipers and pads and service brakes.

5. Wipers will not work on intermittent...

The list is growing by the day. But at least "ol' pinstripe" is getting looked after!