Hey guys, I've got an oil leak on my 1998 S70 T5 that has got me stumped. The oil is leaking down the drivers side rear of the engine, near the cam seal. I apologize if this question has been asked/answered before, but everything I have seen for an oil leak on this side of the engine is either the cam seals or the turbo return, neither of which are my issue.

However, when I performed an engine oil dye test, the oil was not coming out of the cam seal. It's not coming from the turbo return line either. Is there anything else that might leak oil at an alarming rate on the drivers side of the engine above the transmission but below the cam seals? It's difficult to tell where it is coming from, but I have pinpointed the general location using the engine oil dye.

If you guys have any ideas, I would love to hear them. Thank you.

 

I suppose it could be leaking from the head gasket, but I hope not. The oil gets up to the cams and valvetrain through the head gasket, under pressure.

 

Is it possible that the PCV system is plugged and the line that runs through that area is cracked/leaking? I've heard if the PCV system gets plugged on these cars parts of it can leak like a siv.

 

You'd have smoke if the crankcase was venting there, and you can see that hose. Just look at it.

 

Pull the cover over the spark plugs and see if you have a ton of oil in there.....it could be leaking out from there, I have seen it before......

 

+1. if the PCV clogs it can push out the cam seals and will push oil through the oil cap - plus there's a hose that goes to the top of the head. As Psaboic noted, you can get oil on top of the head under the cover so that'd be something to check. You can easily replace the oil cap seal but should test for a clogged PCV if you find oil on top and inspect that hose.

 

mt6127,

I'll be replacing the PCV system and going from there. The car has 201k miles and I'm not sure the last time that it was serviced. It doesn't appear to be a horrible job to do, maybe just a little bit time consuming. The PCV system on these cars seems like something that should be serviced along with the timing belt.

 

Good idea. I just did one at 160k, and really, there wasn't any crud in the oil pan when I removed it. In spite of that, I would still encourage you to pull the pan and make sure the oil drain is open. That is the only thing that makes it like real work. You could poke something into the engine and try to convince yourself it's clean in there, and it would be a lot less work, but that drain goes pretty far down from where you can see it to the bottom of the pan. If you remove the pan you can replace the oil pickup tube o-ring and the oil pan o rings. that's worth doing at 200k I think.