Not sure what the deal is here, the cap/rotor side is extremely clean, the optical pickup side is trashed with oil. There are no external oil leaks on the engine really, espically any of this magnitude to get oil in the opti like that, the outside of it is pretty clean also, so is it the camshaft-->opti seal that is leaking? The timing cover has minimal oil on it to be honoest, its pretty clean also, something crazy with the vac system? Anyone shead some light on this......

 

More info: the is the 2nd of 3 opti the car has eaten since I've had it, 75k - 125k, first was stock, didn't disect it since it was about its time, 2nd one(GM one pictured above) lasted until about 115k, the 3rd was an accel opti, which is in the car now, after 10k miles it is now doing the exact symptoms which the car had prior to 2nd and 3rd opti changes.....haven't taken the ACCEL off yet to see if there is oil in it.

 

wow thats nuts...when I swapped my opti i noticed a lil oil on the back of it maybe i need to recheck and make sure it was dropping form the intake and not somewhere else.

would it be possible for the PCV system to cause that? Oil being sucked in form the intake down to the opti during vac advance?

 

intake leaks are easy to spot.

It's probably the water pump shaft seal leaking if it isn't the intake manifold leaking.

 

do you have to pull the timing cover to replace those? or can they be replaced jsut by pulling that litle shaft out and putting it on?

 

See thats the thing, the WP shaft seal and opti(timing cover) seal were changed when I installed that. Here's my question, I know for a fact its not the intake manifold, or timing cover-to-block cover gasket, as the outside if the opti is clean and dry, very light oil on it....so I assume the oil can only be coming from the opti(timing cover) seal or the vac system is this correct??? sigh, this crap is rediculous....

 

when you changed your opti did you change the seal on the timing cover? That is the most likely culprit. It may have been nicked durning one of your opti changes. The seal can be changed as easy as it is to change optis.

 

OOps I'm bad. If it was that seal it would leak behind the opti and down the front of the motor.

 

My stock opti looked just like that when I pulled it off.

The cap and rotor side was dry and corroded, but the sensor side was full of oil.


The 2 opti shaft o-ring seals were shot, and the water pump drive seal was shot.

The timing cover was pretty dry behind the opti though.

 

Thnx for this info, sounds promising, I guess what happened is when I changed the opti(in which I also changed the shaft seal, and opti seal I must have damaged it probably installing it.....

another problem: I have an elec. waterpump on it, and I just have that shaft exposed spinning outside the timing cover, this won't hurt anything will it? for example, does it need to be connected to and actual waterpump for proper support on the bearings/seals?

 

you should have plugged that with a brass plug while you had the timing cover off. There is no need for it to be open and your probably getting leakage from that into your opti.

 

I never had the timer cover off, the instructions that came with it said to just remove the driveshaft going between the WP and timing cover since the drive sprocket in the WP no longer exsists.

The seal is still intact, and the shaft still protrudes from the timing cover like an inch or so, it was replaced even like I said, so unless it is damaged during install, there shouldn't be any leaking unless like I was saying that with the WP not installed there is undue stress on the seal or something like that? If anyone knows this for sure, PLEASE let me know....

I'll figure out whats going on tomarrow, I'm going to tare it down again and go from there, I'll post back....

 

Yes, it does need the WP for support.

 

god are you kidding me, the instructions said nothing, absolutely nothing about removing the gear assembly, taking off the timing cover, plugging the hole, etc....are you 100% sure? If this is true then I have to go get a stock water pump to put on after I get a new opti, even though the elec. WP has been awesome so far....

 

I have an electric water pump on mine.

The water pump was leaking and every seal in the timing cover was leaking oil. The opti was full of oil, so it all had to come off to fix the oil leaks, opti, and put on the electric water pump.

I decided to pull the timing cover to remove the water pump gear/shaft and plug the hole in the timing cover. Good thing I did pull the cover because I found out my timing chain had jumped. (Fixed that)

I got a P21B concave brass freeze plug and hammered it flat in the water pump drive hole. No leaks so far.

Without the mechanical pump on there, I don't think theres a load on the end of the water pump drive gear, so you don't have to get rid of the gear if the seal isn't leaking. I did a search and there are guys that left the shaft/gear in there and didn't have problems. You are correct, the pump install directions don't say to get rid of the gear.

I'm a spaz so I plugged mine to eliminate future leaks from that seal.