changed cam seals.
 

So yesterday i changed my seals. Everything went pretty smooth. After i took all the covers off the front of the motor i notice that i got a bigger leak then just seals. Heres a pic:


You can see a lot of oil. I was hoping that maybe its just the oil from the seals traveling south and the timing belt throwing it around. What do you guys think? Its can be crank seal (hope not) or head gasket. Either one gonna suck balls to fix.

Attachment 212947

Oh yea i forgot. I took the car apart twice. After i finished it the first time around, i started the car and knew right away the timing was off. So i took everything back apart and yes was off a couple teeth on the intake cam gear. Put it all back together and bam! runs good. I set the timing between 9 and 10 degrees.

it would probably help if you cleaned it well and then took the cover off after driving for a bit so you can see where it leaks from.

+1 This is a good idea. I always clean up oil so I can see where its coming from a couple days later.

It could be oil from the cam seals thrown around by the belt, or it could be oil from the crank seal thrown around by the belt as well.

I would pull the cover and give it a quick cleaning then check it after a drive or a day later. Hopefully it was your cams seals and now your good to go. :)

Vash-

Does anyone have pics or a how to for replacing the cam seals?

from my experience the front crank seal tends to fail around the same time as the cam seals... i usually replace all 3 together.

http://www.miata.net/garage/timingbelt.html

This is the same info I used when doing my timing belt, waterpump, front crank seal, and cam seals. Usually when you have to do any of those, it makes no sense to not do all of them together. Seals are inexpensive, waterpump is cheap insurance along with the timing belt itself. I also did the loctite fix on my SNC at the same time.

Cam seals were very easy. Seal puller is your friend! :)

Vash-

I did indeed clean all that oil mess up. Come on now. But I did put the covers back on. Should of left them off.

Its not hard at all.
Remove belts.
Take off valve cover.
Take off plastic covers.
Remove cam gears (mark your timing).
Pull the seals out.
CLEAN OIL MESS.

Put everything back.

so how long did it take you?

Brainey, I still want to know if you were serious about being able to disconnect the timing belt from the cams w/o pulling the crank pulley. It'd save me a lot of hassle when I do the head gasket to be able to leave the lower end together.

I mean, there is still lack, if anything take off the water pump pulley and cover and remove the tensioner. This will give you room to literally pull the TB over the gears. If you simply unbolt them, since you need to, the TB will come off with them. No need to remove the lower half. Just make certain you don't jump a tooth on the lower gear, and then you simply put it all back exactly in the same position you removed it.

Well it took me 30 minutes to take everything apart. Took me about ten minutes to take the seals out (its a bitch without a gasket picker) and put the new ones in. Then timing and putting everything back. All together 1 hour to an hour and a half. But i did take my intercooler pipes out to clean the dirt off and make them look pretty, but thats a different job. + had to put the tools away and the floor jack since i have to work under a car port instead of a garage.

To answer your original question, yeah, a leaky cam seal can have oil thrown all over the front of the engine.