Hello again- still trying to understand everything I should about this car and be as proactive as possible with my maintenance. I had my car on a lift recently to address the suspiciously absent rear muffler and my mechanic noticed a trace of oil which seemed to originate from the front of the engine (then went ahead and ordered a front crank seal from Napa). I checked under my car this morning and noticed a spot of oil towards the front of the vehicle smaller than a baseball. What I would like to know is, is this indicative of a more serious issue or should I simply replace the crank seal? I (of course) tested the crankcase pressure before purchasing and the PCV appears to be working fine, so could this just simply be an old seal? 1989 B230F, 169k

 

there's three oil seals on the front of the engine that can fail with age... the crankshaft, the intermediate shaft, and the camshaft.

 

Hard to say which of the three has failed without taking off the timing belt covers. However, if it is the camshaft seal, the top one, there will be oil seeping down over the water pump seal O ring and it is easily noticeable. Either one of the other two, then it's a bigger job, like a timing belt replacement basically-- the oil then comes out of the bottom edge of the timing belt cover.

 

and if it is the crank seal, its highly advisable to replace the harmonic damper aka crank pulley as the rubber core of those tends to rot out with age.