Technical Sudden heavy oil leak fron the top of the engine...

[dumbledore]

Suddently noticed some heavy oil leak from the top of the engine, also fouling the timing belt as well. Replaced the usual culprit the rocker cover gasket and thought I fixed it but if I trash the car a bit I can see oil leaking from the top. I am suspecting the camshaft seal has gone now. Is this a common failure?
Also can I change the seal without removing the rocker cover?

 

[fingers99]

No. My way of doing it also involves removing the cam sprocket and cam, although folk say it can be done without. May as well replace the Coil pack carrier O ring while you're at it.

 

[MadMan0]

A bit of a long shot but check the breather hose hasn't split at the cam cover, mine broke and leaked oil down the back, and belt side of the engine. (easy to overlook)

The oil ran along the edge between the cam/rocker cover and cylinder head. slow leak so when i noticed oil had leaked, it had covered most of the engine in that corner, making it look worse than it was. Bit of a clean and new hose and no more oil leak

 

[dumbledore]

Cheers for the answers. I just check the hose and it seems OK, although I did not remove the cam cover to fully check it. I wiped it with a piece of paper and there was no oil traces appart of the usual black dust. Everywere else there are visible signs of oil so I am assuming the hose must be OK.
I went and changed the cam seal before this though. Had to remove the cam cover and loosen all cam shells but not remove the cam. Then I could easily put a small screwdriver through the gap between the shells in the front and remove and replace the old seal. Hope this fixes it but have not fully test it.
Other reasons for failure I am thinking is unusual high crank case oil pressure which will cause some leak even if the seals gaskets are sound, or some sort of head gasket failure but this is very unlikely I assume as the car runs OK and no issues with the cooling system at this moment.

 

[dumbledore]

unusual high crank case oil pressure which will cause some leak even if the seals gaskets

Probably I should have said unusual high oil pressure in the cam are not crank case!!. So what would cause that?

 

[fingers99]

Same thing. Knackered rings aside, most likely cause is blocked breather. Yank off, soak overnight in solvent, flush out.

 

[dumbledore]

Cheers, OK good to know. I did blow the smaller hose coming of the main hose and it seems to be not blocked. Can't see how the thicker hose coming from the cam cover will be blocked but I assume is possible.
Did some testing yesterday (120 miles) not going over 3.5K rpm and seems to be dry. I did about 60miles today raising rpm to 4K and occasionally to 4.5K and it seems still be OK. I won't know if this is completelly fixed until I test with the 6K redline ofcourse, but nevertheless things look promising.