Oil leak after rebuild

[theweekendhaslanded]

As a few of you may know I have been rebuilding the Willy 3 engine these last few months.

The engine went in and the 1st fire up went well. After switching off to cool down in prep to re torque the head, there was a pool of oil under the car. It appeared to have come from the cambelt side. On closer inspection it was decided that the crank shaft oil seal had failed. So off to Renault for the genuine part and it was fitted pretty soon after. The failed seal on rebuild was part of a gasket set and was pretty poor in comparison to the genuine seal so I was very confident that that was the problem. Anyway......Just fired up the car again and all was well with the running, oil pressure at 5bar on cold 3bar warm on tick over, but oil was dripping off the plastic cambelt casing again. So its all in bits again but I cannot see where the fook its coming from. The camshafts are dry and I cannot see anything obvious. The oil is travelling around the aux belt and alternator and around the inside of the cambelt cover and of course on the cambelt.

I have removed the cambelt casing and intend to start the car up once the bottom pully is back on and watch for oil spraying out from hopefully an obvious place.

I wanted to share this flustration with you guys but also ask if anyone has any ideas on where it could be coming from? If nothing is visable the next stage will be removing all pulleys and the cambelt casing back.

Any help or pointers will be appreciated.

Alan.

[16v_paddy]

Having had a look on dialogys, the only things I can think of causing that would be the seals behind the oil pump pulley, just a guess so might not be of any help

http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/qq165/16v_paddy/2012/Dialogys%20pics/oilleak.jpg

[theweekendhaslanded]

Cheers Paddy. Where do you get the Dialogys program from? Thinking about it the oil pump pully is the only area really where the oil could come from. I will investigate this week.

[MatBrown]

Have you got all the bolts in the plastic back plate?
As I seem to recall one of these goes direct into the engine.

[Evogone]

Also why are you re-torquing the head there stretchbolts ?

[theweekendhaslanded]

Matt - I will double check but I used every bolt I'm pretty sure.

Evogone - The re-torque of the head is in the Williams technical manual. I was also given the info from the engineers that worked on the head/block. I did some reading up via the forum and most of you guys dont bother but I did it by the book. I just need to find out where this leak in now. Roll on Friday night!!

[theweekendhaslanded]

Have you got all the bolts in the plastic back plate?
As I seem to recall one of these goes direct into the engine.

You were spot on Mat!!

I fired the engine up and placed a large piece of card down the side of the engine in hope that I will see where the oil was coming from. When I wound up the revs it was obvious that there was a leak as oil was spraying everywhere. After 10 secs of running I looked at the card and sure enough there was oil right on the bottom and it was coming from around the bottom pulley. After locking the engine and removing the bottom pulley, right behind it theres a threaded hole that goes straight into the engine. The oil had been firing out of there straight into the bottom pulley and spraying it everywhere.

The threaded bolt hole wasnt in use as I have gone for a sligthly different type camcover (lower plastics) The different cover doesnt use that particular hole and it was obviously missed by 2 of us!! Lesson learned.

A good clean up and a soapy wash on the belts and I think I'm nearly ready for this car to finally move itself out of the garage and off to the MOT station.

Thanks for your help chaps!!

:)

[Wobba]

I love fixes like this. Yea, takes a bit of investigation, but lesson learned and jobs a goodun :D

Mat is clevers.

[16v_paddy]

I love fixes like this. Yea, takes a bit of investigation, but lesson learned and jobs a goodun :D

Mat is clevers.

Yes he is and I'd say you're drunk again as well :drunk::flogging::lol:

[MatBrown]

Always a pleasure. ;-)