1.2 16v major oil leak

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1.2 16v major oil leak

Alan Mac

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Hi all,
A friend of my wife has bought a X reg Brava with the 1.2 16 valve engine. It's got 70k on the clock and quite possibly the worst oil leak I have ever seen. :eek:

I had a quick look at the car today and the leak is ridiculous. Popped the upper cam cover off and with the engine running there is a fine mist of oil spraying upwards from one of the wheels below the cam wheel. There's so much oil in there I can't be certain where it is coming from.

I know very little about this engine (always had the Lampredi twin-cams in my Fiat's). Oil spray seems to be coming from the wheel directly below the cam wheel, is this the oil pump wheel?

Tha car lost about a litre of oil while I was looking at it. The leak is below the level of the head gasket and it doesn't appear to be the culprit (no overheating, no loss of power, etc).

The engine continues leaking after it is switched off but ends up just a small drip compared to the large scale oil loss when running.

I can't see it being the head gasket or crank seal due to the amount of oil being lost and the pressure it is coming out at.

Any ideas would be much appreciated, especially a diagram of what's what at that side of the engine. Also price for a pump and replacement procedure would be great. As the car is immobile at the moment, the work will have to be done at the side of the road, so as you can guess, I'm really looking forward to this. :D

Thanks,
Alan
 
I just solved an oil leak like this on my OH's stilo with the same engine (and are now working on another leak but at the rear of the engine). Does the oil seem to drip out of the bottom of the cambelt covers? If so it might well be same leak I had. It was the camshaft oil seal, but it only leaked when the engine was up at running temp for a reasonable amount of time, after say a run rather than just starting from cold in the driveway and letting it warm up. I initially thought it was the cambox seal as there was oil around the joint with the head, it took me a while to realise it was the camshaft seal as it only leaked when the revs where above ~3000rpm. I hadn’t initially noticed this at first as I was only ever looking at it myself so found it hard to rev the engine and look under the bonnet at the same time! I saw the same oil mist you talk about but it was just the oil on the various sprockets getting flung off as they rotated. If it does turn out to be the camshaft oil seal and you need any advice how to change it just let me know.

The sproket below the cam is the water pump so I don’t think it is possible for any oil to leak from here. The bottom sprocket is the crank so you may have an oil leak coming from there. Also it may be the joint between the cambox and the head, although if the leak is all at the side of the engine I’d still go with the camshaft oil seal.
 
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