Oily Sprint - I know, intended behaviour but...

[Galileo]

Spent 3 hours trying to find out where this oil leak is coming from, resorted to cleaning up as much as I could with a can of gunk and leaving it overnight. My main concern was that it was coming from the rear crank seal, but this morning the bulk looked to be from elsewhere. I'm quite confident that the cam cover seal could do with being replaced, but the N/S isn't too bad. Looking down towards the oil filter all seems dry, and nothing from the cam cover on that side. It must have been doing this for awhile as both silencers are covered in oil, and the gearbox mount mostly resembles marshmallow.

As I'm being gassed by the fumes of all that oil burning, to the point where I swear I can still smell it hours after getting out of the car, and so to save me from passing out, would anyone casually passing by the forum care to look witheringly whilst muttering to themselves 'idiot boy, it's obviously coming from the xyz'?!

[tamtrucks]

rear main crank seal on engine?

[MIG Wielder]

I'd have a look at the plate at the back of the cylinder head. This also connects to the waterways so I'd expect a water leak as well. Cam-cover gasket would still be my first choice though. It can help to clean out the screw thread holes as they get gunged up and the screws don't go in all the way.

[xvivalve]

Sprint?

If it is burning on the exhaust it is most likely to be the bottom right cam cover screw, it is very difficult to get this one tight enough to seal that corner. Replace the original screws with cap heads that you can use an allen key on (available from Club)

[xvivalve]

Paper cam cover gaskets are no good either; get an original thick card one. I have quite a few at a fiver, but postage is a bit steep due to size.

[Jon Tilson]

I would certainly do the camshaft cover as Alun advises before looking at the oil pump O rings and then pulling
the engine to do the rear crank oil seal.

Jonners

[Galileo]

There doesn't appear to be any water leaking, and neither does oil seem to be dripping on to the manifold or downpipe themselves from what I can see. I think the hot oil smell is just from it being on the engine block itself, until of course drips get blown back onto the silencers. Certainly an effective if unusual rust preventative 'feature'!

Been on a 60 mile drive and just got back, immediately checked under the oil pump and filter, an area (as well as any other bit I could get to) I cleaned yesterday to help diagnosing, and it was nice and dry. Now it is still a bit hot to be near an exhaust manifold but it is oily again under the cam cover, which is of course the one side with practically no visibility, so perhaps exactly as suggested it is leaking past the cover gasket, and travelling down the engine block before pooling at the lowest point. Something that concerns me is that it looks like some form of instant gasket has been used on the manifold side of the cover, could be just being used to keep the gasket in place whilst bolting on the cover, but the cynical bit of me thinks otherwise. Ah yes bolts, they all all hex head types, I guess someone has already replaced the originals.

Looking at the picture again there might be a small leak from the gearbox breather hole, but the area around is dry towards the big oil drops. I'm rather hoping it is not the rear crank oil seal, though not phased by taking an engine out, that was when I had a garage, the current abode has no such luxury.

I'll PM you xvivalve about buying one of those gaskets from you, it's an easy and cheap thing to rule out first of all.

Thanks all for your suggestions, appreciated.

Edit: If someone stumbles across this thread and wonders why people leave threads hanging by not saying what the end result was, then let that not be this thread. It was the cam cover gasket after all, not leaking in just one place but along the entire length which is why it was quite hard to pin down as it was just gently washing down the entire engine. What was left of the gasket was mostly carbonised paper and blobs of instant gasket, replaced with Alun's supplied gasket and oil consumption is now nil.