Evening all,

Cant actually believe I'm asking for help on this one but here goes...

18 months or so ago I start to get a burning oil smell coming through the vents. Had a quick look and it was pretty obvious the rocker gasket was leaking.

Ordered up a new gasket from my local motor factors and set about it.

Did the job properly, took the cam cover to my local garage, minted it in the parts cleaner, cleaned all the top of the head and put it back together.

A few weeks go by and it becomes pretty obvious I haven't cured the fault. If anything I'd made it worse!

Read somewhere that you are supposed to use gasket sealant along with the gasket so I pulled it all apart and repeated the process with blue gasket sealant added this time.

Months go by and all appears ok, drive it tonight and the smell is back. Pop the bonnet and there's oil around the turbo / manifold area!

Rocker cover appears to have fresh oil around the edges again!

Am I doing something wrong? It's only a Rocker cover gasket at the end of the day!

Thanks in advance :)

Edited 22 December, 20169 yr by Paul thornton

Have the same problem, but haven't tried adding sealant. I would though re-torque your fasteners on to of the cam cover. You may find these aren't as tight as you expect after a few heat cycles and the gasket compresses after a bit.

Maybe the Cam cover is warped? Did you let the silicone gasket dry and harden correctly? 

Maybe the camcover bolts need to be tightened in a particular order for it to seal properly?

 

Just throwing things out there :D

Edited 23 December, 20169 yr by skoda321

Blue sealant isn't that good for that rocker gaskets, better off using some RTV sealer. As said it may be that the rocker cover is twisted, did you tighten it down sequentially? Like a cylinder head for example?

Could it maybe be the cam bearing seals and not the cover gasket that's leaking?

Definitely looks like the cam cover is leaking all the way round. It's quite obvious at the back of the engine.

I tightened it as you would a head, started from the middle and worked towards the edges.

I might try another gasket and some different sealant, failing that I'll have to try and source another cam cover.

Could it maybe be the cam bearing seals and not the cover gasket that's leaking?

If theyre the little half moon seals that sometimes come in a set with the rocker gasket i think thats what the problem is. Well with mine anyway.and sounds similar to mine

My oil seems to be leaking down beside the combi valve and temp sensor side and ends up all over the back of the block

I think with mine the added pressure im getting for what reason i dont know yet isnt helping either.

Instead of trying another rocker gasket maybe have a look there but iirc theres a bit more to changing the cam seals as Ken mentioned

Keep us posted anyway as does sound similar to mine

Just been out and had another look. I don't drive the car often, especially in winter and it's times like this when I start asking myself why I still own it!

Anyway, checked my crankcase and cam cover breathers and they both appear to be functioning correctly. There's a little pressure when I remove the oil filler cap, nothing more than I'd expect though tbh, but no pressure when the dipstick is removed.

I think I've just got a bad gasket / sealant or both as there's traces of oil all around the edges of the gasket and considering how much I cleaned it last time in theory there should be none.

I've just ordered a new gasket from ecp so will fit it along with some proper sealant and see how I get on.

I've just ordered a new gasket from ecp so will fit it along with some proper sealant and see how I get 

 

 

That could be your problem, I'd use genuine if it were me 

That could be your problem, I'd use genuine if it were me 

 

+1 - Have never had much luck with cheap gaskets, especially rocker cover

Bit of an update.

I picked up the ecp gasket and some rtv sealer the other day. Finally got some time this evening so set about it.

On removing the rocker cover it was obvious that the blue sealer hadn't done it's job at all and had actually just turned into mush.

I cleaned everything up and checked the rocker cover on the flatest surface I could find and it doesn't appear to be warped.

What I did notice was the previous gasket appeared to be made of a harder plastic material whereas the new one was a lot softer.

I got the previous gasket from my local motor factor and I think they had had it in stock for years plus it was an unknown make so not ideal.

Putting them side by side the ecp gasket was clearly a lot thicker (obviously the previous one will have been crushed to a degree)

Spurred on by this, I decided to fit it without using any sealer. Torqued the cam cover down as you would a head, fired the car up and was greated by the usual cloud of oil smoke from the exhaust manifold as soon as it got warm. (Old oil burning off)

Took it for a good blast, got home, popped the bonnet- no smoke.

Gave the cam cover nuts another quick tweak and cleaned all the edges of the cam cover so I can see if any oil starts weeping out.

Will monitor it for a few days and see how it goes but for now it's looking good.

There's oil all over the back of the engine so I really need to find a way of cleaning it off. Probably try some gunk or something similar.

Edited 31 December, 20169 yr by Paul thornton