Any idea where this oil leak is from?

[chris1972]

Seems to be coming from higher than the filter and sender and dripping down. I took these with my phone about 20 mins ago whilst shoving my arm under the car.

Any ideas?

[Mr Supercharged]

Looks like you have oil on the sump bolt heads? Could it be blowing off these while driving? Is it leaving an oil patch on the floor? As Mater says on the Pixar film Cars, when he's talking about a british engine "if there aint no oil under it, then there aint no oil in it!".

[BIGMIKE1]

Oil pressure switch is up above oil filter area, but could also be running from rocker cover, valley gasket, etc or even more than 1 place. I like to think of some of my oil leaks as self preservation for the chassis

[phazed]

Probably crank oil seal, either on its way out or engine not breathing correctly and internal pressure pushing past seal.

Well, you did ask

[chris1972]

Thanks for the replies. I check the oil weekly. It doesn't lose a massive amount, but obviously there are some leaks.

The did very little mileage in three years and all of a sudden has started to be used. I tightened all of the sump bolts last week, which stopped a lot of the leaking. I should image that these worked a little lose after not being used much.

When I e-mailed Dan at Taylor TVR he mentioned about common oil leaks, which were the input shaft and the crucifix (not sure what the latter is). As for the engine not breathing correctly, how can I check and rectify this? How will I identify the crank seal leak?

[phazed]

Clean and degrease the area and go for a drive!

Your sump sounds like it should be removed and a new gasket fitted, an hours work or thereabouts.

[chris1972]

phazed said:

Clean and degrease the area and go for a drive!

Your sump sounds like it should be removed and a new gasket fitted, an hours work or thereabouts.

Got you now

[gavgavgav]

If you have not checked yet - the highest point in your photo with oil on it is the filter, I would suggest that you give is a tighten to see if it's just that. It's easy to do.

[chris1972]

gavgavgav said:

If you have not checked yet - the highest point in your photo with oil on it is the filter, I would suggest that you give is a tighten to see if it's just that. It's easy to do.

I'll get the axel stands out again and have another look underneath. I did think about the filter.

[phazed]

I always wire my filter to stop it loosening, maybe flat out on track days induces this?

[Discopotatoes]

phazed said:

Probably crank oil seal, either on its way out or engine not breathing correctly and internal pressure pushing past seal.

Well, you did ask

My money is crank seal too, I have just cured all my oil leaks in one go, I just sorted a good vacuum and bingo!

[chris1972]

If it is the crank seal, is it still drivable like this as long as I keep the oil topped-up? Haven't got the money to do it at the moment.

[phazed]

If it's only dripping, use and keep an eye on things.

[spend]

Forget most of the advice, crank seal / rocker gaskets dribble & pool they are mainly affected by crankcase pressure.. Start off looking at the oil pressure connections, ie filter / oil switch + sensor & bung on the timing cover. Mainly clean everything anally and try & catch sight of the source ~ oil runs everywhere & is whipped into all sorts of places to mislead you so never discount the sump seal.... Fixing the problems are easy - finding the root cause is the hard bit so any quick 'fixes' just end up with you doing loads of things that are unnecessary.

[chris1972]

I'll take the sender out again. Should I put anything on the thread to help seal it?

Here's the gasket:

Edited by chris1972 on Tuesday 19th February 14:10

Edited by chris1972 on Tuesday 19th February 20:03

[spend]

The sender is a tapered thread into the adapter (1/8" NPTF x 27 IIRC) so should seal itself, the adapter SHOULD have a rubber o ring that seals to the cover.

The bung on the LHS is exactly the same as the adapter BTW (just not drilled & tapped for the sender).

[chris1972]

spend said:

The sender is a tapered thread into the adapter (1/8" NPTF x 27 IIRC) so should seal itself, the adapter SHOULD have a rubber o ring that seals to the cover.

The bung on the LHS is exactly the same as the adapter BTW (just not drilled & tapped for the sender).

Need to get a new o ring seal too! What size is it do you know?

[spend]

chris1972 said:

Need to get a new o ring seal too! What size is it do you know?

Remove the sender ~ if it has a parallel thread you will need a sealing washer, if it has a taper thread no washer. The o-ring fits in the tip of the big M18 adapter to the timing cover. IIRC all the senders should be a taper thread ~ but who knows with some of these ebay or TVR specials??