Honda Guru's - Oil Leak

[loperdw]

[attachmentid=433]I am the recent owner of an ITB 87 Accord LXI and am working on tracking down an oil leak. This just started last night from what I can tell, however I have not had the car running since the Enduro at Daytona first weekend in May. I have attached a picture for reference as I describe the issue. The image is from underneath the car, oil pan on the right side of the picture, crankshaft pully on the left.

The lower cover has come loose, but it doesn't have any additional bolts that would allow for the cover to be pulled closer to the pan. Has anyone had this issue before? Do i need to replace the lower cover? Do I need to replace the gasket between the lower cover and the pan? In either case I will need to pull off the crankshaft pully, can this be done without removing the engine from the car?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

dLo

[R2 Racing]

If I'm seeing everything correctly, that cover is just the lower half of the timing belt cover. It doesn't bolt on real tight because all it does is keep crap out of the timing belt area. There shouldn't be any oil in there, ever. If there is, you have a problem. Usually when you are getting oil leaking out of the bottom of that timing belt cover, the oil seal between the end of the crankshaft and the oil pump has gone bad. It's not super common, but it absolutely does happen. To fix it, you will need to remove the crank pulley, which should be able to be done with the engine inside the car. It might not be easy, but it should be able to be done. After that you need to remove the valve cover, then the upper timing belt cover, and then the lower timing belt cover. Now release the tension on the timing belt by loosening the tensioner. Now you should be able to slide the belt and the timing belt gear off of the end of the crankshaft. The oil seal will be right behind that. Your local Honda dealership sells little oil seal kits that helps you get the old one out and install the new one. Like I said, it's common and they should be able to help you. Overall, it's not the simplest job in the world and you'll probably get a bloody knuckle or two and curse on several occasions. You may also want to buy a new lower timing belt cover if the old one has warped itself (quite common). At the very least, get a new seal for your old one. Then just put everything back together in the reverse order, while being VERY careful to get the timing belt aligned correctly again.



Does everyone else agree with this diagnosis?

[zracre]

that sounds right on! if the timing belt got oily as well it is probably a good idea to replace it too. I also like to replace tensioners and anything else under the timing cover that is a serviceable part (water pump cam seals etc) when applicable. I hate doing things and having to do them again! Did it happen suddenly? (daytona) if it popped i would look carefully for other causes when it is apart to keep it from happening again. Good luck!

[itaintegra31]

Every thing said above is correct, but it could also be the cam seal, or the valve cover gasket. If the valve cover gasket was not sealed when it was installed (honda bond in the corners at the cam towers) it will leak down inside the timing belt covers. So when you get it all apart look very carefully for the source of the leak, if you can't be sure replace all 3.

[loperdw]

This is great information and I have to thank you for the time. I started pulling things apart last night but haven't been able to get the crankshaft pulley off just yet, pain in the arse... I'll have a friend come over and give me a hand on that piece.

I was able to get the upper timing belt cover off and to my surprise I found no oil on the timing belt. I suppose that really doesn't mean much, but I expected to see some there if I had a leak at the valve cover gasket, cam seal, or the oil seal. I still need to pull off the bottom timing belt cover, so I'll let you know what I find.

I figure a little more detail on the leak might be useful at this point. This oil leak did not start at Daytona. I did have a leak at Daytona, but it was due to a line to an external oil cooler rubbing up against the power steering pulley getting cut and spraying oil everywhere, that was a mess, and it was a gush rather than a leak. I had replaced the lines to the oil cooler this weekend and started up the car to get the oil to flow back into the system, didn't see anything leak then so assumed that the new hoses worked fine, but I didn't put it under any real load.

On Monday night I decided to crank up the car to adjust the brakes as I’d replaced the rear (drum) shoes over the weekend as well. I decided to rev the engine to warm it up and piss off my neighbors, jerks..., did this for about 15 minutes up and down the rev band as the engine was smoking from burning off the left over oil that I wasn't able to clean off from the previous leak that had sprayed oil everywhere. When done I got out of the car and saw a pool of oil about the size of a quarter cup of coffee. I began to track it down and saw dripping from the location shown in the picture.

That’s my story and I'm sticking to it.

Again, thanks for the advice and I promise to update as I progress.

You guys rock!

dLo

[jsgprod]

I remember seeing you running around that weekend, not that that's relevant to this thread.

There is one other item that could be the cause of your leak that happened to my GP CRX last year. A cracked oil pump housing!

My car developed a leak in the same place all of a sudden last year at Roebling. I also figured it was the front crank/oil pump seal. Got one in town replaced it and it wasn't any better. Didn't run the race. Went home and bought a sleeve kit for the crank snout to cover the groove that was there. Thought that might be it also. Didn't help.

That's when I pulled the oil pump and found several small cracks on the outside of the pump housing that were next to impossible to see from under the car. The inside of the pump was even worse.

I keep a spare oil pump with me now.

[Motor City Hamilton]

Looks just like a crank seal leak to me. Mine had the exact same leak in the exact same place before we did the rebuild. If it is the original seal from the factory, it might have been put in on a slight angle, then one side wears out first... then leak.

[loperdw]

I had the oil seal replaced. Because of my time frame and lack of knowlege, I didn't have enough trust in my ability to pull it myself as I was planning to run at Sebring this past weekend. I had a local shop that has a couple of miata racers as mechanics do the job. I had no issues at the track, car held pressure and no leaks at all! Prior to this issue I had a small leak somewhere around the distributor that seams to have been solved as well. I know that I'm going to need to learn how to correctly pull off the timing belt soon, little bit expensive to run it up to the shop and have them do it.

As a newbie to this I am very impressed and thankful. You guys are great, Thanks for all of the advise.