Have an oil leak rear right side of engine its dripping onto the exhaust manifold and burning as there is no evidence of an oil leak on the ground. Is there a suspect area to look at closely? I am thinking its the valve cover gasket thats the guilty party but would like some input if others have had a similiar problem. Gaskets were supposedy replaced about 2 years ago when the timing chain tensioners were replaced.

 

It's most certainly the valve (cam) cover gasket, there really isn't anything else above the exhaust manifolds I can think of. I just had mine replaced as part of other work and they had to go back a second time and add sealer due to some warpage of the valve cover.

Just changed the oil pan gasket yesterday and cleaned the oil pickup screen so hopefully I'm getting all my leaks corrected.

 

thanks for the reply and yes i couldn't figure out anything else there it could be other than the valve covers. Will look closer at it when I have it up to change the shocks and mounts on the front.

 

The valve cover gaskets usually fail not because of the gasket but because the installer tightened the cover bolts too tight and cracked the plastic. There is a spacer within the cover to prevent that from happening but it is very easy to torque past that and break it.

 

Having read through all of the maintenance history of my XKR (which I was lucky enough to have received, going back to the original owner), I have seen that oil leaks by the cam covers have been common with it going back as far as 2003, and the gaskets have been replaced several times. Imagine that, a 3-year old car leaking and burning oil!


Shortly after bringing my XKR home for the first time I began noticing the burning oil myself, and have found at least one oil-soaked area on each cover. I'm looking forward to changing the cam cover gaskets, and possibly the oil pan (which is damaged) as soon as the weather warms up.

 

Examine that cover closely for cracks, and use solvent to clean the head surface. There are a lot of mechanics out there that don't clean old varnish residue and overtighten to try to stop leaks.

 

Multiple changes of the gaskets suggest cracks due to over tightening.

If so, new gaskets alone aren't going to fix it.

Graham

 

would you suggest adding permatex to the new install?

 

With a cracked cover it is not the gasket that is leaking. If you can find the crack a little Permatex there couldn't hurt.

Wolfpak1, haven't heard from you in years.