UkLegacyT

had a minor incident today, was driving along normally, then noticed smoke pouring from the rear of the car!
first thing i thought was the it was smoking from the exhaust, eeks! anyway, temps fine, running and sounding fine....so,

lucky for me it wasnt, because as i slowed down to check it loads of smoke poured out from under the bonnet, so i carefuly opened it to look........

on the heatsheild, drivers side where manifold joins to up-pipe, there was a loads of oil alight on the heatsheild.

i managed to get a bucket of water from a house and it went straight out, and there is no damage, phew!

so, towed it home as i wasnt going to heat it up again. ive removed the heatsheild and also the cambelt covers to look for leaks.
i checked around and everywhere seemed dry and oil free, exept for the inside of the drivers side wheel, suspension, brake etc was covered in engine oil, and also the mentioned heatsheild was soaked in it.
so i checked the oil level, had gone from full (routinely checked the level yesterday and was on max), to half way between max and min, so it hadnt lost too much.
the only places i can think of is the camshaft oil seals or the rocker cover gasket.
the rocker cover doesnt seem to have any oil along its lower edge.
however, i put my finger through the cam pulleys to check for fresh oil around the seal, and the lower (exhaust) wheel has fresh oil around it, whilst the top (inlet) wheel is dry.
there is also a fine mist of oil on the cam cover, and wet oil along the lower edge of the cover too.

so, my intention is to change the camshaft lower seal and also the rocker cover gasket.

question is:
are there any other seals/gaskets that i may have overlooked? up-pipe/turbo etc are dry, as is the rest of the manifold and also the engine etc, just seems to be the corner on the drivers side that is oiled.

any suggestions?

thanks
ian

Andy.F

Front crank seal is known weak spot. The first pulley the oil hits is drivers side exhaust. When you have the timing cover off, look behind the crankshaft belt sprocket, the seal usually pops completely out and can be seen resting against the toothed wheel.
Other than that, turbo drain pipe ?

cheers

Andy

UkLegacyT

cheers andy

i hadnt thought about the oil being carried across. i will have at the crank seal look tomorrow when i remove the pulley.
i seem to remember you saying a while back you couldnt get yours to seal and replaced it a few times, hope i dont have the same problems, the rear crank seal still drips a bit out here and there, changed that a few times

i checked the drain pipe last night thinking it couldve been that, but it was all dry, its just that front corner where all the oil has collected.

have you fitted your front seal with or without any additional engine sealer? i used sealer on my rear crank seal, but still a prob, tried it without too

will post up what i find tomorrow.

cheers. ian

Andy.F

My front seal was popping out when I was running 1.8 bar on the standard breather system, I think the backpressure was pushing it out.
It's never been a problem since I fitted 3 big breather pipes. I also gave the casing it sits in 3 'dinks' with a centre punch to peen over the edge slightly.

Andy

drb5

iTrader: (4)

andy.f

sorry about asking you the following, dougster suggested having a word with you.
i'm trying to get as much hands on experience of scoobs as poss and was wondering if there's anyway you could show me a thing or two about them? or know anyone i could turn to?

any info would help a lot.
cheers
drb5

ps. sorry for the hijack

[Edited by drb5 - 10/12/2003 9:21:28 PM]

[Edited by drb5 - 10/12/2003 9:29:48 PM]

Bob Rawle

Check the oil pressure warning switch, they have been known to leak through the casing, onto the block, back across the top and onto the heat sheild ... as another suggestioin.

bob

UkLegacyT

Andy, i'll check to see if my crank seal has popped out, as i am still running vent to inlet breathers (even though i dont like them).

Bob, thanks for that suggestion, i will check that too.

thanks

UkLegacyT

sorted now

it was the oil seal for the offside exhaust cam. removed the cam wheel and the seal was just sat on the cam itself.

to my suprise, subaru dealer here actually had one in! only £5.50 too, and didnt take long to swap. new seal was a good tight fit, and touch wood no leakage.

thanks for the help
ian