Anyone heard of a rear main seal fail overnight (while not driving) or due to cold weather??

[nikolajs]

I have a 1998 V70T5M. I rebuilt the head about 5,000 miles ago because of a burnt valve. Link to that thread here: https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... 9&start=10

The car has 175,000 on it now. Here is what happened since the head rebuild:

Drove it no problems for a while.

Then started to notice a slight oil drip on the driveway. At first I thought it was from my other car so didn’t think much of it…

The drip has gotten progressively worse, at first not much volumetric loss (1 quart every several weeks) but just making quite a mess everywhere I park.

I did the seal/gasket on the turbo return line a couple weeks ago hoping that was the culprit. When I was down there it looked like the fresh oil drops were coming from the engine/trans joint, making me think it’s a rear main seal. But hard to tell because it was so dirty.

Last night was cold (one of the first hard frosts)- when I went outside in the morning there was a solid stream of oil underneath it and large puddle. Maybe an eighth to a quarter of one cup (more or less). But way way more than I've ever seen on the ground.

I’ve looked around on the RMS posts, but have two new questions about rear main seals that are potentially related to the head rebuild job:

1) Is it common for a rear main seal to fail after new seals (cam seals, valve stem seals, head gasket, etc) are done with a head rebuild?

2) Has anyone ever heard of a seal (RMS or other) failing overnight or due to cold weather (while just sitting in a driveway)? Seems kind of extreme, but nothing else changed. The car wasn’t driven for several days before or after the major leak started.

The PCV system was done at 150,000. Coolant in expansion tank is clean, and level stays constant. Car doesn’t seem to burn any oil and runs well.

thanks!

[tryingbe]

Are you sure it is not leaking from the cylinder head?

[scot850]

If you have replaced all the seals with the exception of the crank seals then they become the weakest link. Cold weather will shrink the metal more and open up gaps not seen before or may have been minimal. It is when water pumps also show they are going as the coolant will get by the impeller seal when really cold if badly worn, but stop leaking when warm, and then re-leak when cooling down.

tryingbe is a wise man so follow his suggestion also. You could try ATP-205 or Blue Devil RMS seal stop leak products to see if they help in the short term.

Neil.

[bmdubya1198]

After reading your other thread, if you are seeing oil on the right side of the car near the windshield washer reservoir, check out your oil cooler lines. There is a very good chance they're leaking.

[abscate]

Pop the glove on the oil filler and lets see the PCV pressure. If the return port in the block is plugged, new PCV parts won't help.

New cam seals probably pressursise the case and blew the RMS

front of engine is probably a bad fitment of a cam seal, though,

The engine.trans drip is classic RMS - try the BG product.