oil - but from where??

shaunthesheep · Post by **shaunthesheep** » 14 Oct 2002, 03:46

i've noticed that on the top of my xantia 1.6 8v '93 it's starting to gather oil around the rocker cover bolts, but i've got no idea where it's coming from??.
i did earlier this year have to replace the rocker cover gasket, capped nuts (with rubber sealing washer), studs & all oil breather hoses from the top half of the engine to the sump front due to being blocked.
due to one being snapped off by the previous ownner/mechanic. replaced all studs & nuts at the same time with new ones from citroen.
also i'm losing oil from the back of the engine, i've check the oil filler cap for a creamer paste to rule out head gasket blown,no paste to be seen, no oil to be seen in water in coolant tank, so i'm at a loss as to where i could be losing oil from.
it only seems to be losing it with the engine running, as i'm not leaving a patch overnight.
dom

alan s · Post by **alan s** » 14 Oct 2002, 04:22

As an educated guess, I'd say possibly that you may be a victim of (as a hypothetical example) say 25mm long stud in a 24.9mm depth hole. In other words the stud is bottoming out before it is putting the amount of pressure required to seal the gasket. Some on these types of things are right so n sos to get to seal at any time often due to the distance between the bolt holes. A typical Cit problem years ago was around the spark plugs on a CX which had an "O" ring around that supposedly sealed when the rocker cover was screwed down. Most left one or two leaking and the "trade secret" was to cut cardvboard rings to pack up the leaky ones; this then caused the rocker cover to leak so it was the dog chasing its tail situation.
I eventually found that if I bought a cheap 'contact adhesive' (rubber based stuff) and coated all the gaskets & "O" rings before refitting, it totally sealed off; when setting tappets, all we did was wiped the seal off with a petrol soaked rag, which cleaned it as a fringe benefit, smeared more cheapy contact adhesive on al the surfaces and screwed down & never had another leak!
May be worth a try.
Alan S

Post by **RichardW** » 14 Oct 2002, 13:57

My old BX TD used to lose oil down the back of the engine - when I stripped the head off to do the gasket it was obvious that is was the gasket that was leaking the oil. as long as you have no other problems with the HG, I'd just leave it!
Richard