Oil leaks

Took my car in to my local garage to track down some oil leaks and was told the following, front crankshaft oil seal needs replacing, engine oil cooler pipes need replacing and the turbo needs replacing.

To do the first 2 jobs on the list they asked for £400 so I told them where to go! Have ordered the oil cooler pipes and going to do that job myself.

Now is it an easy job to do the front crankshaft oil seal? have a good socket set etc. and the time to do the job.

Do you have the RAVE manuals??

Can be Downloaded from Wammers How To on Compressor checking in the How To section!

They detail the Seal replacement procedure and looks simple enough but could require the use of a tool to remove and reseat the seal!

Saint.V8 said:

Do you have the RAVE manuals??

Can be Downloaded from Wammers How To on Compressor checking in the How To section!

They detail the Seal replacement procedure and looks simple enough but could require the use of a tool to remove and reseat the seal!

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Yes have the rave manuals, looks like allot of bits have to come off including the rad but as you said looks simple enough to do. Guess I also need to lock the engine some how to undo the crankshaft nut.

What confused me was the instructions for torquing up the crankshaft pulley nut!

Correct torquing of the crank pulley bolt is crucial or you will lose the oil pump. You will need a torque wrench for initial tighten. But the 150 degrees can be done without an angle gauge. if you mark up the bolt head. But a lot easier with an angle gauge. Each flat is 60 degrees so it's two and a half flats from the initial position. You would have to mark up and work it out. You will definitely need a crank holder of some sort to do it. Oil seal itself is a piece of pee to change.

You sure it's the crank seal at fault and not oil from the cooler pipes?

Defiantly coming from crankshaft seal, engine oil cooler pipe is leaking at the first metal to rubber joint from the engine and dripping over front diff case and surrounding items.

Taylorcraft said:

Defiantly coming from crankshaft seal, engine oil cooler pipe is leaking at the first metal to rubber joint from the engine and dripping over front diff case and surrounding items.

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Diff case and engine front was oily on mine just from the cooler pipes, you may be lucky.

Front/front left of engine has oil on and leaves drips on my drive over night after use, will change engine oil cooler pipes over the next week or two then have a better idea of where the leak is.

I also have a minor oil leak from the back of the turbo, will have to sort that out another day.

Good luck getting the pipes off the cooler.

Apologies for hi-jacking fred, but I've got oil down front left of block, except it's V8. I'm thinking this is crankshaft oil seal rather than front of valley gasket. Don't valley gaskets leak down the back of engine? Anyone agree before I start pulling off the wrong stuff? (Oil cooler joints are dry - I had a new cooler).

I thought my V8 crankshaft oil seal was leaking,so i replaced it,(pain in the backside to tighten crank pulley back up) only to watch oil leaking from under it! It was dripping from just under the edge of the seal housing but not out of the seal! Ended up replacing the oil pressure switch!
I made a mental note to make sure i cleaned the area properly before jumping to conclusions about where oil is coming from!

jonesavpman said:

I thought my V8 crankshaft oil seal was leaking,so i replaced it,(pain in the backside to tighten crank pulley back up) only to watch oil leaking from under it! It was dripping from just under the edge of the seal housing but not out of the seal! Ended up replacing the oil pressure switch!
I made a mental note to make sure i cleaned the area properly before jumping to conclusions about where oil is coming from!

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Excellent advice and best practice to do this.

jonesavpman said:

I thought my V8 crankshaft oil seal was leaking,so i replaced it,(pain in the backside to tighten crank pulley back up) only to watch oil leaking from under it! It was dripping from just under the edge of the seal housing but not out of the seal! Ended up replacing the oil pressure switch!
I made a mental note to make sure i cleaned the area properly before jumping to conclusions about where oil is coming from!

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wammers said:

Excellent advice and best practice to do this.

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Top tip chaps, I'll certainly be giving it a good cleaning before pulling stuff apart. The built in rust proofing system doesn't 'arf blow oil around, it's a shame to try and fix it really! But my driveway is starting to look a mess

Stufer said:

Top tip chaps, I'll certainly be giving it a good cleaning before pulling stuff apart. The built in rust proofing system doesn't 'arf blow oil around, it's a shame to try and fix it really! But my driveway is starting to look a mess

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Think you said you had one from back of turbo. Maybe oil return to sump or take off pipe to turbo. Turbo pipes weep oil if not sealed properly. Oil going into turbo via breather can be reduced to almost nothing by removing cam cover and cleaning out oil separator and PCV.

Hello All,

I've just done an oil change to my 4.6 V8.

I've got oil all over the bottom of the engine, sump pan, oil cooler pipes, oil filter (a drip on there), front axle diff case, anti roll bar etc, lambda probe wiring, and bottom of the bell-housing (another on drip there too).

It's sucj a large area I did think it was the sump but I resealed that in February, and then I thought it might be the rear crankshaft seal, but there is too much oil forward of that for it just to be that.

My question really is what can leak around the front of the engine? I've got oil over pretty much everything so probably need to check everywhere.

I'll look at the oil cooler pipes (where the rubber joins the metal does look very wet) and try and see if it's the front oil seal, but is there anywhere else to check?

I don't get any drips under the car, but I have a wide covering, I'm wondering if it's caused by a fine spray rather than a drip? If that's even possible.

Finally, how hard are the cooler pipes to change?

MrGorsky said:

Finally, how hard are the cooler pipes to change?

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They have a 50% or so chance of stripping the threads of the cooler requiring a cooler change. Otherwise, not difficult just a couple of awkward spanner positions. Not sure how hard it is to replace the cooler.

Alternatively, if it is just the compression joint leaking, you could try my method I showed you this morning of just sawing off the pipe at the joint and replacing the hose: it's 5/8" oil line (I used 20bar.. should be enough ) and 4 jubilee clips and a tad of a sealant has held up perfectly on mine for about 1000 miles now

TCubed said:

it's 5/8" oil line

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I think that is the way forward, cheers.

TCubed said:

They have a 50% or so chance of stripping the threads of the cooler requiring a cooler change. Otherwise, not difficult just a couple of awkward spanner positions. Not sure how hard it is to replace the cooler.

Alternatively, if it is just the compression joint leaking, you could try my method I showed you this morning of just sawing off the pipe at the joint and replacing the hose: it's 5/8" oil line (I used 20bar.. should be enough ) and 4 jubilee clips and a tad of a sealant has held up perfectly on mine for about 1000 miles now

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You mean swaged joint, no compression joints.