We Troubleshoot An Oil Leak
Posted on Jun 29, 2023
About the same time as our last oil change the car developed a small oil leek that would congregate on the bottom of the engine block and then drip on the showroom floor. It was of a concerning amount but quite annoying sort of level. The problem was we couldn’t figure where it was coming from.
The interweb suggested two dire possibilities that we thought we had to investigate: broken head bolts and/or leaking rocker shaft seals. Both require removing the valve covers so we put the car on the hoist and did just that.
Fortunately, all our head bolts were intact and, the rocker shafts, though not bone dry were not exactly wet. This was great news but not very helpful. The decision was made to put the valve covers back on (with new gaskets and hardware of course) and live with the leak till we could take the car out of circulation and give it a good going through, hopefully next year. While we were in there, we did find a vacuum hose that had become dislodged and reconnected that to the valve on the side of the oil tank.
The interweb suggested two dire possibilities that we thought we had to investigate: broken head bolts and/or leaking rocker shaft seals. Both require removing the valve covers so we put the car on the hoist and did just that.
Fortunately, all our head bolts were intact and, the rocker shafts, though not bone dry were not exactly wet. This was great news but not very helpful. The decision was made to put the valve covers back on (with new gaskets and hardware of course) and live with the leak till we could take the car out of circulation and give it a good going through, hopefully next year. While we were in there, we did find a vacuum hose that had become dislodged and reconnected that to the valve on the side of the oil tank.