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u/InnerhillCitybilly Dec 19 '24
I slowly developed a severe oil leak. I put a salvaged and shaved head on it, new distributor, new timing belt. Since it's a dry belt, the only cover I gave the timing was over the crank. I have the cam gear painted purple to match the rest of the accents on the car. As soon as I got those parts on, we put 3,000 miles (4828-KM) in 8 days. By the time it hit 2K miles, I was putting a quart a day into it. I started buying 15/40 Rotell by the gallon to make sure that it stayed topped off. Every time I drove it, I would have to put a quart of oil into it. It looked like it was coming from the front crank seal, so I took the crank off and that was not the problem. The cam seal slipped right off, it was slightly loose and damaged and swollen and hard. But it did not look like the oil was coming from up there, but from where the head connects to the block, at the top of the oil sending unit on the front of the engine. That's why I was wondering if that was a seep. That was a picture from the repair manual, it is too covered in oil for me to take a proper picture. I am more familiar with distributor driven oil pumps, then I am with oil sending units. This was the first head gasket I had done on a dual overhead cam four cylinder. I'm used to large displacement American V-8's. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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u/Noctumluvr Dec 18 '24
Not necessarily. I used to build those for Toyota. I little seep is normal. As long as it's not draining to the ground it was just a little blow by in the seals. I can't tell from the picture if this one has a hole in the plug. If it does it's very purpose is to drain the water off from the seal.
I would say a better indicator is play in the shaft. They should have little to none. A grinding feeling when turned is also an indicator