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I got an oil leak and I'm trying to find out where it's coming from. The leak is coming from the passenger side under the splash guard near and behind the tire. My car also has a cold start noise that goes away after it warms up the sounds like it's coming from the driver side now. I did do belts and tensioner replacement to remove any doubts and the noise still persist. I got the tools and weekends to try and fix this, but no idea since I have no service manual to help. I found a couple YouTube videos but not much with my model. Any help will be appreciated. I put up some pics just for reference. Thanks in advance to anyone that is willing to chime in. Drive belt tensioner Tensioner replacement
common places for oil leaks are 1) cam seals 2) VVT hub/solenoid 3) turbo oil return line seals 4) oil cooler line seals. If you pop off the timing belt cover you can see if any oil is leaking behind the timing belt (1 or 2). Removing the turbo heat shield will give you a good view of the turbo and the oil return line. The oil cooler lines come off the front so it doesn't match up to your comments. You may need to clean the block a bit to see where the fresh oil is coming from.
Looks like a front main seal to me. The good news (well, sort of...) is that if you need to do a timing belt anyway you can swap out the FMS in just a few minutes for a few bucks with the front of the engine in "timing belt replacement mode". If you just replaced the timing belt recently... oh well... ;-)
front cam seals and VVT gear leaks can drip down the timing belt cover and soak the belt so that's why you want to remove the timing belt cover to see if you have a leaky seal up high or down by the main seal. if the timing belt is wet, fix the seals and replace the belt asap before it fails and you wind up with bent valves.
Good catch, mt6127 - that IS a real possibility (and as you mentioned, one that should be checked out ASAP before it has the chance to turn that engine into a large paperweight). ;-)
common places for oil leaks are 1) cam seals 2) VVT hub/solenoid 3) turbo oil return line seals 4) oil cooler line seals. If you pop off the timing belt cover you can see if any oil is leaking behind the timing belt (1 or 2). Removing the turbo heat shield will give you a good view of the turbo and the oil return line. The oil cooler lines come off the front so it doesn't match up to your comments. You may need to clean the block a bit to see where the fresh oil is coming from.
Thanks for the feed back and happy new year. Been working and hardly had time to check back here, but with what you mentioned, it seems I have my work cut out for me. I saw this in fcp, Liquid Moly LM2020 Motor Oil Saver, and was wondering if it'll work as a band aid till I gather some coin to trouble shoot the issues hands-on and thoroughly.
That "snake oil" might just do the trick - or not. This is one place where I really like Amazon - you can look up reviews for products like this one and see if there's any kind of pattern. Sometimes you can't trust all the reviews since sometimes there are only a small number that could be from "interested parties". But most times there are hundreds, if not thousands of reviews and sometimes they can be very informative. Of course, the RIGHT thing to do is to ID and fix the leaky seal (particularly if it's the cam seal, as that one can get oil on your timing belt), but for a "short term, waiting for spring" interim solution... why not?
That "snake oil" might just do the trick - or not. This is one place where I really like Amazon - you can look up reviews for products like this one and see if there's any kind of pattern. Sometimes you can't trust all the reviews since sometimes there are only a small number that could be from "interested parties". But most times there are hundreds, if not thousands of reviews and sometimes they can be very informative. Of course, the RIGHT thing to do is to ID and fix the leaky seal (particularly if it's the cam seal, as that one can get oil on your timing belt), but for a "short term, waiting for spring" interim solution... why not?
Thank you for the reply. I hope everyone is doing good. I finally had time to take it to a Volvo mechanic and he said the problem is the oil pump. It's leaking and needs to have the seals replaced. I still have the "snake oil" and wondering if I should use the product after an oil change after all it's done? Also, being that I know what the issue is for my leak, Will the above information provided about the cam seals be needed. Mechanic was charging $1200 to reseal oil pumps, timing belt and check on camshaft. Then he lowered it to $650 for just labor to reseal the pump.
If your car is due for a timing belt (it certainly is from an age perspective - don't know about mileage), then having it done would be a semi-no brainer. While your mech is in there, he could change out the front main seal, since it'll be right in his face as he does the timing belt.
I'm normally not a big fan of "snake oil" - at least not in a really healthy engine. I suspect there's really nothing wrong with the product you're looking at - though sometimes that stuff ends up being viscosity agents that just ratchet up your oil's viscosity enough to make it less likely to leak out marginal seals / past rings, etc.
12-21-2019, 02:01 PM
V50 oil leak and cold star noise
