heavy oil leak

bikeguy

Registered User
I'm new to this forum and new to the super coupe. Bought a 1990 two months ago. Problem is I just spent a grand fixing an oil leak last week and I went out this morning to find the same problem again. The car looses about a cup of oil if it is run for approx. a minute. The timing chain cover gasket was blown the last time and it looks like it is the same thing again. Was wondering if anyone else had this problem. The mechanic who did the repairs is very good, so I'm thinking something else is causing it to fail. Any ideas. Thanks alot. Great Board.
 
Just a guess but is there a worn spot on you oil pan i.e. where the frame rubs the pan and have you replaced your motor mounts
This has been a problem with some SCs. Hope you find it.
 
There isn't a worn spot on the oil pan. The oil is definately coming from the timing chain cover. The gasket was blown out there. I was wondering if the oil pump could be putting out too much pressure causing the gasket to fail? I had read about the oil pan when I did my search through the forums for oil leaks so this is one area I made sure I checked. Thanks for the help though.
 
Clean it up real good with engine cleaner around and higher than where you suspect the leak is. Let it completely dry off, then start the car up and let it run for about 10 seconds. Then crawl under with a flashlight and start looking around till you find the leak and feel around to make sure you have it. Oil drips down (I know this sounds obvious, but its easily overlooked). I had a cracked sender unit which dripped from the bottom onto the oil pump. Took me a while to find it.
 
Is the new gasket blown out? There are 2 seals in the front the main crank seal and the timeing cover seal. Which one was replaced or blown out?
 
The timing cover seal. The crank seal was fine. Basically everything at the front of the engine was removed just to find the leak. There was a new harmonic balancer put on by the previous owner. Does this sound odd? I'm not very familiar with car stuff I mostly work on bikes. Ive done lots with car stereos but very little with the motors.
 
I had the exact thing that TbirdSCFan had and thought it was the cover. The sedner cracked under the plastic cap that is over the sender and the oil would run out along the back of the sender and drip off one of the pump bolts. It took me a long time to figure it out even after removing and inspecting it. I plugged it with a pipe plug and the leak went away, plugged the sender back in and the leak was back. Finally removed the little cap around the sender and found the crack. If you did the work once it would be a shame to have to do it twice.

Did it ever really fix the problem, or did it leak again after the repair?

Jeff
 
The leak did disappear. I put about 100km on the car and it was fine. The next day I put under 1km on it, when I got out I could smell oil. Started the car backed up and found it was leaking again. Not just a little drip. With the car idling for about 30 seconds it drips roughly 1/4 cup of oil. I will definately have them check the sending unit though to make sure. Thanks for the advise. If I would have put 100km on the car with it leaking my low oil light would surely have come on. The way the car sits now I would loose over a liter of oil in 100k.
 
Mine was that bad. After I fixed that leak, about a week later the oil filter had a crack in it and shot out oil everywhere (bad motor mounts).

Jeff
 
Thanks for the help I will definately get that looked at. I bought this car cause I was tired of driving junk. Always wanted a sc with a 5spd, had a 85 turbo coupe with a 5spd. To date that was my favourite car. I jsut hope this one doesn't turn out to be a money pit. I drive relatively tame in the car, my insanity is vented on the bike, but it is winter.
 
Thes cars money pits? Um.. you must be thinking of another car. This has been the most expensive car I have ever owned when it comes to maintaince. I hope it's not your daily driver.

Jeff
 
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