Chasing oil leak on new engine. suggestions.

[Damon88]

Posted in the tech forums, but feel and hope I might have some better insight and direction from some of the talents engine gurus in this forum. Newly rebuilt 3.0 engine with 600 miles. Cold engine start, I see blue smoke for a second. For what its worth I did not rebuild the engine...

I started to smell burning oil recently and decided to have a look. I noticed fresh oil leaking onto the heat exhangers at cylinder 1,3 and 6. so I pulled off the valve covers and removed heat exchangers. This is what I did to eliminate things to figure out where oil is leaking from..

-All head studs needing to be re torqued back to spec.
- Inspected Cam shaft rocker seals. all dry and clean
- all valves were check and in spec
- TOD on top of engine clean and dry.

It seems the oil is leaking between the cylinder and cam shaft housing.? There is also oil leaking from the valves in cylinder 2 and 3 into heat exchangers... I have reached out to original engine builder With not much help.. super frustrated to be honest. I now feel like I need to drop the engine and have someone look at removing the heads and seeing if it was sealed properly and also looking at the valves.. Can anyone chime in and offer any kind of insight on these oil leaks. thanks to anyone who has the time to reply. Cheers,
Damon

[dannobee]

Before you remove the engine, pinpoint the oil leak by adding dye to the engine oil, then running it for awhile (not around the block, but 50 miles or so). Then crawl under there with the black light and a mirror or two and look. You'll see the oil leak.

The oil dye kits are available from amazon and other places. Dye, black light, yellow glasses.

[Damon88]

Originally Posted by dannobee

Before you remove the engine, pinpoint the oil leak by adding dye to the engine oil, then running it for awhile (not around the block, but 50 miles or so). Then crawl under there with the black light and a mirror or two and look. You'll see the oil leak.

The oil dye kits are available from amazon and other places. Dye, black light, yellow glasses.

After more investigation, the oil is definitely leaking from in between the head and cam tower housing, also oil is leaking down the intake valves on cylinders 2 & 3..
Insert “FACEPALM “ … ugh

[john walker's workshop]

Looks like a teardown and fix job. Any info on what sealant was used, heads to cam towers and were the valve guides replaced? New piston/cylinders, or re ringed, or just reused?

[safe]

Did you rebuild it yourself? If you had a shop do it I would return and let them fix it.

[buster73]

Lots of carbon deposit for just 600 miles for my taste. Regarding oil leaks you might be lucky to fix it by just re-torquing heads bolts and camshaft housing bolts. Hard to tell just from the pictures. Thumbs up !

[Damon88]

Originally Posted by john walker's workshop

Looks like a teardown and fix job. Any info on what sealant was used, heads to cam towers and were the valve guides replaced? New piston/cylinders, or re ringed, or just reused?

John thank you for replying. The sealant from what I can see on the engine is green. That all I know . The engine builder has been not great to deal with. Here is a link to the add on pelican that shows all the work done on engine... Hopefully this will give better insight to my issues...Cheers John

https://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-used-parts-sale-wanted/1133929-1983-3-0-rebuilt.html

[Damon88]

Originally Posted by safe

Did you rebuild it yourself? If you had a shop do it I would return and let them fix it.

No I purchased the engine from pelican classifieds. the fellow I got it off bought is pff engine builder and never installed it. The builder was great to deal with when I call orginally to ask about the engine and build specs... Now not so much... ugh

[Damon88]

Originally Posted by buster73

Lots of carbon deposit for just 600 miles for my taste. Regarding oil leaks you might be lucky to fix it by just re-torquing heads bolts and camshaft housing bolts. Hard to tell just from the pictures. Thumbs up !

Thanks Buster73. yes, way to much. I have already tried to re torque.. oil leaks still there. engine will have to be torn apart to inspect.. Cheers

[Black 993]

I wonder what sealant that is. Never seen green before. Can't be Curil-T, right?

[Damon88]

Originally Posted by Black 993

I wonder what sealant that is. Never seen green before. Can't be Curil-T, right?

Yea I'm not sure. it's very strange. Next week engine will be removed and top end apart. I will post pictures to what I find. Cheers