I recently had my distributor replaced, and before that my car never leaked oil. But now i leak quite a bit of oil. There is a little oil around the distributor, and some around the valve cover. The other night it started bogging down above 2K and so i checked all the plugs and they were fine. I pulled off the cap and saw a little oil around the coil and inside the cap. I cleaned it off and the problem was fixed, but it started again a last night. How could I permanitly fix this problem?? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
First thing I would check is your PCV valve. If you are really cheap or recently replaced it you can test it by pulling it out of the crankcase and putting your finger over the hole and pulling away and feel if it is snapping. (While the engine is idling and it is still hooked up to the vacuum line.) If you haven’t replaced it in a while (or ever) replace it and check the vacuum line that it is attached to. They can fill up with crap and your crankcase doesn’t vent properly and you start blowing oil through all your seals.
There is an O-ring that keeps oil from leaking out the dist. but I think that it is just a shaft and bushing that seperates the inside of the dist.
there is also a seal that keeps oil out of dist. it’s above the bushing
I don’t recall that i ever have changed that, but i will change it tomorrow definatly. If it still is a problem I guess I’ll have to check the seals like u guys said. Thanx
Yea I checked my pcv valve and it had come loose from the lower vacum hose. I took the valve and shook it and it still rattled, so i just put it back. That helped the start up on my car but I still have wierd acceleration problems. I found my oil leak, there is oil all around my valve cover. Could that be the cause of oil in my distributor?
The distributor has an o-ring on the shaft where it goes into the head - that could be bad. It /may/ (I haven’t pulled one apart in years tho) have internal seals as well - that would require disassembly of the distributor to repair.
Mark the distributor so you can line it back up w/out a timing light, yank it, and replace that o-ring on the shaft and see if it’s any better. Also make sure your distributor cap has a good rubber gasket on it; if it’s bad it’s possible (a long shot though) that oil from other leaks could be getting in through that.
There’s also a plastic plug just in front of the distributor that may be leaking (cam seal plug) - that could be the source of your “valve cover” oil leak. $5-10 for the plug from the dealer, $15-30 for the valve cover gasket. Neither would be letting oil inside the distributor though.
Thanx 4 the info, That sounds like it’s my problem.
the o-ring and cam plugs are external leaks. and it would be a long shot for oil to get in from those leaks through the distributer cap rubber gasket. it sounds to me like the distributor is leaking internally. there is a seal inside the distributor. change distributor housing unless u can manage to change the seal by itself. the seal is about the diameter of a knickle
So I have to pull the distributor to change that?