When I got the car I had a few niggles which I asked you all about. I noticed at the time one or two minor oil leaks, minor enough to not leave any drops on the ground. Since then I believe the oil level on the dipstick has dropped a tad, probably 1/5 or 1/4 of the hatched markings (in about 4k miles) I'll attach some photos of the areas that are leaking, I am wondering if I really need to sort them? It's an old car with not many miles on it, but it isn't worth a lot, so is it really worth the outlay?

I believe one is the rocker cover gasket, not sure about the other. Seems to be on the side of the gearbox?

I'm doing an oil and filter change this week anyway, so perhaps if I keep an eagle eye on the level and see if it is actually dropping or if it isn't moving at all.

Cheers

Also, out of interest... I've always noticed a weird hiccup with our panda when letting off the accelerator at lower speeds, sometimes the car bucks and kangaroos a bit. I think it's mostly when cold too.

Is this normal?

The gear shift shaft has a seal that has to cope with a sliding and turning action. They do leak eventually. You will need the full repair kit with seal and roll pin.

Remove battery and battery box for access. Clean the area throughly as you will be exposing the gearbox internals. DIsconnect shift cables (they pop off with a pry-bar/lever) Remove the cover to a work bench. The roll pin knocks out with a parallel pin punch. Mine had broken into two !!!

Dis-assemble the shift shaft, fit a new seal and grease it with any high temp grease. Reassemble with the new roll pin and reassemble the cover to the gearbox.

I used Loctite 518 on the joint surface as it sets only in the joint. There is no hard gunk that can get into areas it should not.

Is this definitely the leak on the side of the gearbox then?
Is it something that needs to be done sooner rather than later?
I'm not 100% sure if I have the skills to do it properly...

DaveMcT said:

The gear shift shaft has a seal that has to cope with a sliding and turning action. They do leak eventually. You will need the full repair kit with seal and roll pin.

Remove battery and battery box for access. Clean the area throughly as you will be exposing the gearbox internals. DIsconnect shift cables (they pop off with a pry-bar/lever) Remove the cover to a work bench. The roll pin knocks out with a parallel pin punch. Mine had broken into two !!!

Dis-assemble the shift shaft, fit a new seal and grease it with any high temp grease. Reassemble with the new roll pin and reassemble the cover to the gearbox.

I used Loctite 518 on the joint surface as it sets only in the joint. There is no hard gunk that can get into areas it should not.

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Some oil consumption is normal. Yours sounds absolutely fine.

The cover is on the top of the gearbox. Leaks from the seal run down the back side. They often get mistaken for a drive shaft leak. Mine has never leaked on to the floor but you could smell the gear oil so it had to be done.

Car engines often get a little oil misting on things like rocker gaskets. Unless it's making a mess they are usually best left alone. If you don't have the skills/tools leave it to a professional. It's not difficult so should not be too costly. Get it done when the leak is making a mess. There is no need to bother for a bit of mist.

This may help. A better angle of the gearbox leak.

No mess that I have noticed. I can't smell gearbox oil under the car at all really.

DaveMcT said:

Some oil consumption is normal. Yours sounds absolutely fine.

The cover is on the top of the gearbox but oil runs down the back side - often mistaken for a drive shaft leak. Mine has never leaked on to the floor but you could smell the gear oil so it had to be done.

Car engines often get a little oil misting on things like rocker gaskets. Unless it's making a mess they are usually best left alone.

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Gman88667733 said:

No mess that I have noticed. I can't smell gearbox oil under the car at all really.

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If you want to get a proper look you'll have to get under the car, or remove the battery box. To be honest the leak sounds not enough to be concerned about. Leave it well alone.

DaveMcT said:

If you want to get a proper look you'll have to get under the car, or remove the battery box. To be honest the leak sounds not enough to be concerned about. Leave it well alone.

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Gotcha. I'll have a better look when I change the oil later in the week, but I think I'll leave it be for now.
Cheers

Something else that has bugged me since I've had the car is the exhaust manifold heatshield. It rattles like crazy and makes a bit of a racket when the car idle or at certain revs.

The bolts look like they have no chance of coming off nicely and the heat shield is so far gone that it has sheared where some of the bolts secure it anyway.

Shall I attempt to remove and replace?

I don't bother unless its actually regularly dripping on the drive.

A bit damp on a 10 year Old car is okay in my case 2x cars and three years later they haven't got worse.

Some of the thinner fully synthetic oils like 0W/30 are asking for trouble plus loss of pressure at idle.

Gman88667733 said:

Something else that has bugged me since I've had the car is the exhaust manifold heatshield. It rattles like crazy and makes a bit of a racket when the car idle or at certain revs.

The bolts look like they have no chance of coming off nicely and the heat shield is so far gone that it has sheared where some of the bolts secure it anyway.

Shall I attempt to remove and replace?

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Remove it and Chuck it away, noise will be gone.

If you not sure if gear oil or engine oil rub your finger on it then smell finger, if smells like cat wee it is gear oil.
Though you photos hardly show any oil at all in my opinion.

I took mine off


don't park on long dry grass

If you can do your own service work, ie, change spark plugs, engine oil and filter etc, check gearbox oil level, then you will be able to renew the cam cover (some of us "oldies" might call it a rocker cover) gasket. I've used both genuine and generic made examples and had no problems with either. It's not at all unusual to find this rubber gasket leaking when it's older and it can easily run down both the sides of the block and the top of the gearbox and down the bell housing. As suggested above rub some off on your finger and "sniff" it. Rotten eggs smell and it's gear oil, engine oil sometimes smells a wee bit like washing up detergent and is always less pungent than gear oil. If you decide to do the gasket apply some liquid gasket to the corners where it goes over the cam at the front and the rear. Sometimes it will leak if you don't do this. Oh, and clean the oil away with something like brake/carb cleaner or the sealant win't stick.

As Dave mentions above, the seal on the selector shaft can leak. The one on my boy's Punto leaked gently away for over 2 years before I did anything about it! Just topped it up with probably less than a small teacup full of gear oil every 6 months or so. Generally if this is leaking the oil goes down the back of the bell housing and dribbles onto the inner driveshaft joint so when you check it you think "smells like gear oil, inner driveshaft joint is wet with it, must be driveshaft seal" Of course it might be but look carefully at the selector shaft. It's higher up on the top of the box, so if it's wet it can't be being caused by the shaft seal. Unless you're dead unlucky and both selector and driveshaft seal are leaking! It's not a horrendous job to do the selector shaft seal but if your skill level is at the Oil and filter/spark plug/brake pad renewal sort of level you might find the selector shaft seal a bit challenging and you will need a rather better tool kit - pin punch and the like. If you do decide to give it a go be very careful not to drop anything into the box whilst you've got the top off! Cover it with some large old rags etc. The picture of the bell housing you've posted shows the front of the bell housing (I can see the coolant pipe) so my bet would be on the cam cover gasket being the culprit. If so it's so easy to do you might as well? If there's no oil leaking from further up but there is oil round the bell housing as can be seen in the pics, it could be a rear main crank seal - but this is not nearly so likely as the cam cover leaking.

Good luck and do keep us informed
Jock

PS our Panda's shield rattled too so I fabricated a bolt on clamp arrangement for the bottom after the nuts sheared off. Luckily the top bolts came out Ok but the holes in the heat shield were severely cracked and over large. I used two penny washers, one either side of the shield to secure it nicely.

I started to make repairs to the manifiold heat shield, but some bolts were sized solid others had corroded too badly to use. I gave up and removed the thing. Its never gone back on.

Jock has just reminded me - While you are under the car, have a very close look at the coolant pipe which runs between the exhaust manifold and engine block. They are noted for corrosion and a leak there will lose coolant fast enough to take out your cylinder head gasket. If it's rough with rust, get it changed. They are cheap to replace but there will be a labour cost if you can't DIY.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

As suggested above rub some off on your finger and "sniff" it. Rotten eggs smell and it's gear oil

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Oops, not always true it would seem? This might sound a little bizarre but I had to move some of my oil can collection yesterday to get to where my car washing buckets are stored. There are a number of part used gear oil bottles and I decided to just renew my memory of what they smell like. Mrs J does say I'm getting weirder by the day!

Anyway the first one I picked up was a can - Yes an actual tin can, not a plastic bottle - of genuine VAG stuff I bought when I changed the Cordoba's G/B oil a year or so before I bought the Ibiza. This stuff is completely clear, like water and only slightly more viscous. Guess what? virtually no smell, certainly no "bad eggs". Nearly panicked - Loss of smell is a covid symptom isn't it? Then I had a sniff of the other bottles, Phew, all smelled of rotten eggs!

So it would seem that maybe some of the latest wholly synthetic gear oils may not have the "bad eggs" smell?

Just thought of another thing which really worried me a lot before I did the selector shaft seal on my boy's Punto. There are two hollow locating dowels which allow precise positioning of the cover. They are hollow to allow the fixing bolts to go through their middles (a common way it's done - seen it often before) but, having dealt with this type of dowel before I knew that, occasionally, they may not be tight in the casting so can fall out as you lift the housing away. This worried me as there is a very real risk they, or at least one, might fall into the box!

In the event they were firmly located in the box casting and didn't fall out. Also I've never seen mention of it happening to anyone else. So it's probably very unlikely to be an issue - but worth bearing in mind perhaps?

Your mention of the cooling pipe is helpful Dave. Becky's needed changing when I did her cam belt a couple of years ago and when the one on my daughters old 750 Panda burst down near Carlisle, it ruined the engine because she didn't stop driving quickly enough. I got a really good quality "original Birth" one from S4p for Becky at a surprisingly good price. It was definitely one of the better bargains I've had from them.

Is it safe to take the heat shield off and leave it off?

I do park my car in a field a lot where I live...!

There isn't much. I think a lot has accumulated over time in some areas, but there is definitely no drips.

jackwhoo said:

Remove it and Chuck it away, noise will be gone.

If you not sure if gear oil or engine oil rub your finger on it then smell finger, if smells like cat wee it is gear oil.
Though you photos hardly show any oil at all in my opinion.

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I will check the coolant pipe in a bit.

DaveMcT said:

I started to make repairs to the manifiold heat shield, but some bolts were sized solid others had corroded too badly to use. I gave up and removed the thing. Its never gone back on.

Jock has just reminded me - While you are under the car, have a very close look at the coolant pipe which runs between the exhaust manifold and engine block. They are noted for corrosion and a leak there will lose coolant fast enough to take out your cylinder head gasket. If it's rough with rust, get it changed. They are cheap to replace but there will be a labour cost if you can't DIY.

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