Small oil leak from camshaft housing

[rjkoop]

After using new gaskets on the bottom/top of the exhaust camshaft housing I'm still getting a small oil leak (dripping onto the exhaust and causing smoke) from the bottom part of the housing near the firewall. I was thinking about retorquing (14 ft/lbs I think) and if that doesn't work I'll remove the housing and add gasket sealant to the top and bottom of the new gasket and try again. Does that sound like a good plan of action? If so, what type of gasket sealant should I use?

Does this point to a warped head of camshaft housing issue?

[racydave]

A few times I have gotten lucky and used RTV sealant to repair leaks. Remove the closest bolt on the housing. Clean with carb cleaner the hole and bolt ( cold eng ), blow out gently with compressed air. Put some RTV in the hole and on the bolt. Hopefully this will displace the gap when you tighten it back up. Be patient when tightening the bolt, as you will gradually displace the extra sealant. Give it some time to set up.

[RRoller123]

Sure that it isn't the distributer seal leaking over there above the exhaust?

[BEEK]

agreed with rroller123

[rjkoop]

Sure that it isn't the distributer seal leaking over there above the exhaust?

I'll check again although I see the oil stain on the edge of the gasket that sticks out under the cam housing. And no oil stain around the distributor housing. I have the engine head/cam housing pretty clean so it seems fairly easy to pinpoint.

Maybe I'll take a few pics tonight.

[rjkoop]

Sealed the camshaft housing last night. I used a thin coating of gasket sealant and torqued everything down correctly. Going to start it up tonight and hope the oil leak is gone.

[rjkoop]

So the leak is fixed on the camshaft housing with the gasket sealant. Phew... But I'm still getting smoke coming from the exhaust area after about 30 seconds of startup. I noticed that there is a fair amount of oil on the exhaust (from previous leak fixes and camshaft housing removal) that I tried cleaning off as best I could but still seems to be happening. There are no oil leaks that I can see and it looks like the smoke is coming from where the exhaust header attaches to the down pipe. When I shutdown the engine and crawl under the car is looks like the exhaust header to down pipe seal is leaking a bit and I see a bit of exhaust smoke coming from there. I did a full top end rebuild (head and up). I can't see any oil coming from the head gasket area, the camshaft housing area. The smoke just seems to appear near the down pipe. And after I turn off the car it continues to smoke for about 2 minutes until the exhaust cools off. Could this just be oil burning off around that area that is still on the exhaust somewhere that dripped down from my rebuild and just has to burn off? I'm a little worried to leave the car running with the smoke happening.

I think I'll remove the spark plugs and make sure I don't have a head gasket failure and that my plugs aren't fouled. I'm thinking with all the work I did there may be some crud in the exhaust pipes that's burning off. Not sure. Or maybe I should try removing the exhaust header and looks what's going on inside and maybe clean them out as best I can.

Or what about I ensure the valve spacing is correct and ensure the timing is right? I did the valve spacing before but haven't done this since I reinstalled the camshaft housing with the gasket sealant. Could the valves being not adjusted right and the timing off causes oil to be blown out through the exhaust. The car actually runs pretty well even without adjusting the timing.

[seabeelt]

Sounds like oil burning off. I would let the car run with the hood open for a while. Let the engine come up to temp with the rad fan cycling on and off a couple of times.. Do this a couple of times. If you still have smoke afterward, you have a leak. Make sure your manifold to down pipe joint is good and tight. You can test for air leaks with the back of your hand near the joint. If you feel warm air, you have an exhaust leak. Try this and let us know what you find
R/

[rjkoop]

Sounds like oil burning off. I would let the car run with the hood open for a while. Let the engine come up to temp with the rad fan cycling on and off a couple of times.. Do this a couple of times. If you still have smoke afterward, you have a leak. Make sure your manifold to down pipe joint is good and tight. You can test for air leaks with the back of your hand near the joint. If you feel warm air, you have an exhaust leak. Try this and let us know what you find
R/

Yep. I was just worried about a fire even though I had a fire extinguisher nearby. Is there a chance of a fire happening from a little bit of burning oil on the exhaust manifold?

I'm pretty sure there's an exhaust leak at the manifold to down pipe connection. When I turned off the engine I saw what looked like air bubbles (there was some oil on the bolt) coming from one of the bolts in that area.

[seabeelt]

One or two of,the exhaust manifold bolts at the rear portion of the engine run through to oil passageways. If those are not tightly sealed, you will get some leakage onto the exhaust manifold. Plenty of topics/post about that particular item if you do a search.
R/

[rjkoop]

So I took off the exhaust manifold yesterday. I didn't see any evidence of oil leakage on the 2 upper studs but I took them out anyways, put sealant on them and then reinstalled.

I did notice that 3 of the exhaust ports looked fine (dull black but clean and dry) but one looked a little oily inside. I was able to scrape my finger on the inside of the exhaust port and get some oil/gunk off on my fingernail. And the exhaust manifold gasket had some evidence of oil on it near that exhaust port. I checked the plug on that cylinder and didn't look fouled. But I'll take a closer look tonight.

Any thoughts on what this could be? Maybe the bolts were leaking some oil and into this cylinder area behind the gasket. I just hate to reinstall everything (yet again!) and end up with the same result. I was also going to check the plugs and ensure they are getting spark fine but I think they are because engine runs well when 1st started.

[seabeelt]

Which cylinder exhaust was "oily dirty"?

[rjkoop]

Which cylinder exhaust was "oily dirty"?

#3 - 2nd one from the firewall. Why?

[rjkoop]

Here's a few pictures of the area in case there are any indications of what this could be.

Exhaust port #3 (where I think there is oil)



Exhaust port #2 (looks fine)



Spark plug 3 - doesn`t look oil soaked though



Spark plug 2

[seabeelt]

Perhaps one of your injectors isn't working properly (#3), or at least as the same as the others.
R/