I have a 1989 240 and have just developed a huge problem. I put oil in and went to work and back and noticed the belts squealing at high revs. I got home and opened the hood and the engine bay was covered in oil. We noticed that it could be leaking from near the front of the engine. Which seals could be broken and how could I get rid of this oil? Please help

 

First are you sure you had the oil cap on or on tight. Next would be to take some Simple Green and spray the front of the engine. Let it sit and rinse it down with a garden hose. Blow it dry. Start it up and start looking for the leak. Check the cam cover and then look down near the crank pulley. You may have a bad crank seal or a cam seal. Also look at the oil filter it may have rusted or have blown out.

 

You did an oil change you say? The oil filter area is very high pressure. If the gasket failed, or is not installed properly, or tight enough, you will develop a very bad leak, and eventully blow the filter right off. Remember you always need to oil the gasket.

Ensure you have the correct amount of oil in the engine. I once saw a lawn mower explode from being extremely overfilled. When the pressure builds, the oil will attempt to escape through the easiest path, usually through any gaskets or seals.

If you have simply installed the oil filter wrong, or its just a crap filter that's had enough. You'll be alright. Just remove it, and install another properly. However if you're actually leaking oil from a cam or crank seal you could be looking at a costly repair.

 

I had the same thing happen to my 240 this past summer. Basically the engine mount failed and caused the engine to drop down causing the oil filter to hit the engine mount. This caused a slight crack in the oil filter and leak through there. What a mess.

Something to check for...

 

Did you fix this? Did you just replace the oil filter and motor mounts? It looks like this is my problem. I can see the motor mounts are done so I'm replacing them, I'm just worried that there might be further damage to where the oil filter screws in.

 

In my case I just replaced the engine mounts and changed the oil and filter. No damage was done other than that. My biggest concern at the time was any internal damage to the engine due to loss of oil. As this thread is three years old and my car is still on the road I guess there wasn't.

 

Thanks for the reply, I didn't realize how old this was hahaha. Sounds good, parts are on the way.