Outer Limits 4x4 Board

G'day all: I have an oil leak from high up on the R side of the engine. It drips onto the exhaust and most of it gets burnt, but I would like to fix it. I have read somewhere that there is a hatch plate covering the end of the camshaft, held in place by 2 - 12 mm bolts.
. How do you access them? I cannot even start to see them from the top. . . Do you get to them from underneath?
. What are the O rings? - Size, specification etc
. Has anyone done this job?

Thanks in advance

what motor 3.5l petrol or 2.8 td?

When I had this problem (oil dripping onto the exhaust manifold) it was the rocker cover gasket. The section over the exhaust ports was hard, and cracked into pieces as I removed it.

Fresh gaskets, no problem. Not a difficult job, just time consuming (have to pull the inlet plenum off.)

-Scott- wrote:When I had this problem (oil dripping onto the exhaust manifold) it was the rocker cover gasket. The section over the exhaust ports was hard, and cracked into pieces as I removed it.

Fresh gaskets, no problem. Not a difficult job, just time consuming (have to pull the inlet plenum off.)

Yes I am still trying to motivate myself to pull that damn plenum off so I can do my sparkies.

Ditto, the rocker gasket went hard and I had a hemorage.

Dexter, if yours is a DOHC you don't need to take the plenum off.

Thanks guys. It is a 3.5 L engine and I have already tried to tighten the rocker cover bolts, but no result. I don't think it is the rocker cover, but cannot even see it properly, let alone get my great big hands into that area.

I have a 200000 service coming up (185000 now), and at that stage will no doubt strip it down properly to see and replace everything then. Meanwhile, I guess that I just have to put up with the oil dripping. It drips onto the exhaust pipe, getting there somehow over the starter motor. It seems to come from the back of the head, and that is why I think it is the cover over the end of the camshaft which is leaking (if there is a cover on these engines).

All I know is that it is a damned nuisance.

NJV6 wrote:Ditto, the rocker gasket went hard and I had a hemorage.

Dexter, if yours is a DOHC you don't need to take the plenum off.

SOHC unfortunatly :( I have a bit of a leak but it comes and goes, I dont know if it just eventually got nice and clogged so it doesnt leak anymore, but I didnt do anything to fix it.

With you 200k service, make sure you do the timming belt and replace the water pump and oil seals.

gp339gm339:
Thanks for your comment - I intend to do that anyway - there was a minor oil leak from the crankshaft at 100000 km, but I didn't do anything with it then. It seems to have stopped after that effort. I didn't do the idler pulleys then either, but will do the lot this time - it is such a pain to get there later if needs be and I am getting too old to keep crawling on top and under the beast.

It is also a good time to replace the spark plugs AND LEADS! I had a backfire problem at about 140000 km. The plugs were done at 100000 km, but not the leads. The backfire did wonders to the airflow meter (it runs on gas), so I got a set of Top Gun leads and put them in. What a load of crap! Less than 10000 km later, it was farting something terrible and really blew the air cleaner and airflow meter to bits, so I stripped the intake manifold again and replaced the leads with a set of Bosch. No problems at present, but for the cost of a set of leads, it will be worthwhile to do it properly at the same time.

I also have my wife's 98 Magna to do at the same time, and it is dripping a bit of both oil and water, but not enough to cause me to do that job early - the Magna has about 10000 km to go. Again, it will have new plugs and leads as well as idler pulleys and seals, water pump etc. Anyone know a good bank manager I can see. I know - there is no such thing as a good bank manager! But hell - 2 timing belt kits, 2 sets of plugs and 2 sets of leads - that is going to beexpensive. But to their credit, neither vehicle has really cost us much so I cannot really complain. Having said that... I hope they aren't listening right now...

Found that damned oil leak at last!!! It was the hatch plate over the end of the camshaft. Now, all I have to do is to buy a new O ring or gasket (whicxhever is the right thing) and then figure out how to get my great boofy hands into that tiny space.

Thanks for yuor comments guys.

I finally fixed the oil leak (at least I hope it is fixed). It wasn't too hard to do it. For the benefit of others, I decided to go genuine. The part number is MN176208, and it cost me $4.50.

It is an O ring 50 mm OD and 3.5 mm thick, so the next time, I'll go to the local hardware store and get one like that. The old one was baked hard and had flattened a bit as well. I would hope that a non-genuine part will cost much less that $4.50.