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Newly acquired '89 944 Turbo with an interesting little oil leak around the cylinder #1 (front of car) at the exhaust manifold. It's leaking out onto the exhaust, causing a little bit of smoke. Not enough to see, but enough to smell.
As you can see, the oil is pretty much covering the exhaust header gasket where it bolts up. I don't see any obvious leaks at the cam tower seal above; it all just seems to be seeping from the exhaust port itself? Rather uniform distribution of oil across the top of the exhaust port, maybe a little heavier toward the front of the car.
Where's this oil coming from?
I recently changed the distributor, cap and rotor. Could I have disturbed a seal while doing so?
Bumping this as I've got exactly the same as in the pics. I cant see an obvious leak from the cam housing gasket, but the large hex hole beside the oil filter gradually fills with oil. I can't see any oil inside the cam gear housing, so does that rule out the O ring?
Check the torque on the cam cover bolts, all of them, and tighten to spec.
Use a NEW high quality Allen wrench so the Allen cap bolts don't get rounded. Tap the Allen wrench into the cap.
This is one thing you don't want to mess up.
If the re-tension doesn't fix it, the gasket has failed, it's about a four hour job to pull the cam cover and re-gasket it.
Replacing the gasket will require making sure the timing belt stays put, and the cam gear gets back to the right spot.
Use tape or paint to mark the belt and cam gear alignment before taking it apart. You will have to loosen the belt tensioner.
Last edited by PaulD_944S2; Nov 9, 2021 at 02:05 AM.
Oil leaking around cylinder #1 exhaust manifold
