• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

OIL LEAK

Share this page

vette

vette

Darth Vader
Silver
Country flag
Offline
Hello, everyone. It's been a while since I reported about the sever oil leak I've been trying to resolve on my BJ7. I've had it out 3 times this month so I,m pretty sure of my findings now. After changing all the gaskets on the side covers and the valve cover and cleaning down the complete engine I thought I had stopped the leak. Things were dry on the first two outings. Then yesterday, I notice oil again on the right side just along the top of the side covers. Earlier this was very prevelant and it appeared to come from the very front center of the valve cover then flow down the front of the head to the water pump area at that point the fan and wind was forcing it to flow along the seam of the head gasket. Well the oil has shown up again along the seam of the head gasket, but the valve cover gasket and frontal area of the head is dry as well as the side cover gaskets. It looks like the leak is truely the head gasket. I was going to retorque the head bolts when I changed the valve cover gasket and also adjusted the valves but it looked like it is necessary to remove the rocker arm shaft to get to some of the head bolts, so i didn't do it. I'm not sure that it would have improved the situation anyway. So it looks like I'm into a new head gasket job next. But, boy she sure still runs fine.
Dave, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Thanks Ray, do you think it could have any effect?
 
Vette, did you notice what the engine temperature was on the last trip when the oil leak reappeared??---Keoke
 
Keoke, this year it is running alittle cooler than it did last summer because i tuned it myself this year. This car has a different cam in it than stock and the previous owner had the timing pretty far advanced. i could never get it to idle much below 900 rpms. This year i set the timing at about 10 degrees BTDC. And the car runs cooler and ildes down to about 600 or even 500 rpms. so about temp this year it is holding about 90 degrees celsius on my gauge, that's about 194 farenheit i figure. last year on hot days it would run about 100 degrees celsius.
Dave.
 
Hi Vette, it is my experience that these engines runing at 100C or more will weep oil at the two notches in the block. One appears just in front of the rear mounting bolt of the generator/ lifter cover and the other is just behind the heater cut off valve.Once I cooled my engine down I did not experience this problem any more. Worst case my mill run at 180F.Yours May take a bigger radiator and a good flex fan.FWIW---Keoke??--PS-Try the retorquing bit too
 
Keoke, you were right on with your discription of the two locations of the oil leak. Checked it today and that is where the oil is showing up. I have seriously put a dent in the magnatude of my oil loss but these two locations show a very small flow. I'm not too sure how soon I'll get to this, I'll just keep an eye on it for awhile.. What is a flex fan and what kinds of options do i have for an improved fan. the current fan on the car is a 4-bladed model.
 
Back
Top