On going oil leak - please advise?
 

Hi,

Had an oil leek which has become more prominant since going FI!

To date I have had the camcover gasket changed and the cas O ring also!

The transmission housing seems to get caked in oil!

so today I had the rear main oil seal changed and the gearbox oil seal!

Both of which seemed to be fine although there was allot of oil inside the transmission housing!

Will monitor this for a few days to see if the leak continues, but what else can it be coming from?

The turbo has a fm style oil return line where the sump was drilled, but does not seem to be leaking?

I seem to have the same mystery leak. Changed Camcover, camsensor, front/rear brearing seals and it still drips from some place? Its not from the oil return, oil supply or oil filter as they are all dry. Its just a complete mess down there and as it blows about when you drive who knows? I am not about to pull the engine just yet to figure it out. I have not had to top any fluids yet so I just live with an oil pan in the garge :dunno:

can anyone else shed some light? its a really annoying leak whcih is getting expensive now!

oil line off your turbo?
i had a leak that i thought was oil but turned out to be my slave cylinder ?

hi,
clutch slave cylinder was replaced last year!

Plus its definately oil and not clutch fluid!!

I can shed some light: Head gasket. After replacing the valve cover gaset and the cas seal i cleaned it and still had a leak. It was an external head gasket leak @ 60k. No problems scince ive replaced it. I also had the same thing on a friends miata. One of the back corners leaks oil. Maybe it has to do with the cooling issue on that #4 cyl.

^ crap. that sounds like the old Benzo 300CE i6 i had.. external head gasket leak due to improper HG design. even tho there was never seepage or water into the oil, etc..

when you replaced the cam cover gasket :
did you use an OEM one ?
did you put good quality silicone sealant in the 6 places recommended ?
did you torque down the cover correctly ?

Two of the places to put the silicone are at the rear of the cam cover and if it leaks here you probably wont see it until it drips off the gearbox. How do i know ? Its what mine is doing :) Take the coil pack off (2 or 3 bolts) and have a look down the back of the head on to the top of the g/box. I can almost guarantee thats where the leak is coming from. Failing that, get some rag and get your hand under the CAS and along the back of the head to see if it gets covered in oil.

Hi

yes I checked with the garage who replaced the cam cover seal and they did exactly as you said without prompting them!

I will get under the car this weekend and have alook if there is still any oil around the bell housing!

If there is I will not be a happy bunny!!

IMO, the cam cover faux pas is completely overrated. It's exagerated because wine-n-cheesers can't install isht for the life of 'em. It's not hard to do correctly, and they are only 1 of the many possible leaks in our 10+ yr old cars...

10 yrs old?? Mine is 15!

I should probably take offence at that but i cant be arsed.
I already had a non-OEM gasket which i wanted to use and it leaked like a sieve. I even uninstalled, cleaned and re-insalled and it still leaked. OEM gasket went on over the weekend and no leaks so far.

'nuff said :)

dude. read. i wrote 10+. 15 is > 10, hence covered :p

Hehe- sorry i take pride in my almost vintage miata! In 5 more years you could consider it a classic!

I have a 1991 and my car was leaking on the exhaust corner, cylinder #4...only from the oil gallery to the block...so dripping down the block and being hit by the wind coated everything else.

I changed the head gasket (seems to be a problem on 1.6s) and all is well.

If you can live with it....but your best bet is to clean off everything you can...with brake parts cleaner (this can hurt paint)...or your favorite degreaser....go out drive the car...come back and look for where the fresh oil is.

Keep us posted.
-Mike

Head gasket. Mine did the same, right before it spread to a water jacket and blew the head gasket.

yikes, that's ugly.

I have a 1994 @ 84K. I have that same problem. Eventually id like to pull the motor out and have everything rebuilt....but if its cyl head gasket...thats my next stop for mods.

I've also had an external head gasket leak... mine was leaking coolant and oil so I had a nice green sludge between cylinders 2 and 3 on the exhaust side.

Easiest way to see if that is the problem is to hold the throttle open to at least 4K rpm and look around with a flash light... once the cylinder is loaded up with some combustion pressure the leak should be pretty damn visible... that's how I found mine gushing out of the block like old fuck'n faithful.

once the gasket is torqued down it's trash... cleaning and re-using, even after a short time is a pointless waste of time.