So I decided on Sunday to replace a couple of seals on the front of the motor that I thought were leaking. Basically, at idle I get a small stream of oil down the front of the motor, and it drips out onto the ground. Probably a drop every two or three seconds, so a decent sized leak IMHO. I replaced the Water Pump Drive shaft seal and the Opti seal with brand new parts. I made sure that I didn't rip the WP seal when it was installed, and I used the drive coupler as a guide to put it on. Everything seemed to go very smoothly, and the seals looked like they went on correctly.

I made the mistake of snapping off the throttle body return port on the radiator, so I bought a new unit and put it in today. I fired up the motor after putting the new radiator in ad filling it full of coolant.... and low and behold the damn oil leak is STILL THERE. A couple of knowns: The intake manifold gasket is NOT leaking oil. Everything seems to be below that point. There doesn't appear to be any oil on top of the opti at all. (at least looking from the top) The stream of oil seems like it is coming from ABOVE the crank seal, likely from near the Opti seal. It flows down and around the crank seal "hump" in the timing cover, and down to the lip of the oil pan. It IS flowing down for sure, as I can actually see it pulse a little bit. The highest point I cna see it coming from is behind the drivers side of the optispark itself.


Is there another seal that could leak oil behind the opti besides the seal in the timing cover? Both O-rings on the opti shaft itself are intact and sealing, I can say that for sure. I'm pretty pissed consi9dering that I was almost 100% sure it was the WP seal when I tore it apart, as there were oil droplets sprayed on the underside of the WP and the bottom of the coil, indicating that oil was hitting something that spins, either opti or WP shaft. The opti was covered in a bunch of dirty looking old oil/grease, and took just a few minutes to wipe it all clean. This otpti was replaced about 2 months ago.


ANY ideas? I'm going to try to get a video of the leak itself tomorrow.

 

It's probably the w/p seal. It usually leaks badly when it leaks. Any round seal will leak if not installed flat or tweaked during install (even the opti seal). There is nothing behind the opti seal that would cause any kind of leak. The opti seal is the last point the opti could leak from. The o-rings have nothing to do with oil control.

 

Okay. As far as I can tell, the seals both went in straight and they looked perfect before I put the opti/waterpump back on. I'll put some dye in the oil and use a blacklight. Also, would the WP seal leak at idle? It is a pretty steady stream while idling

 

did you check the timing cover seal where it meets the oil pan?

 

The leak is well above that point. I can see it streaming down from behind the Optispark and down the front of the timing cover too the very bottom, which is where it drips from. I cleaned everything up very well when I replaced the seals.