Oil Leak - Rear cam seal Topic is solved

[JMD77]

New here. Have an 05 S60 FWD 2.5T, 84K original miles. I've read up on all the PCV stuff and will be changing that out just to cross it off. Haven't owned car long. Car drives really excellent. Had not been driven much lately and after a couple hours on highway came back to quite a bit of oil on the drivers side covering transmission, driveshaft on driver side. There is some oil higher up so I don't THINK its the rear main seal. I got under the car and looked in every crevice i think imaginable. There is nothing whatsoever wet on the drive belt side. The turbo area looks mostly dry. What I believe I've narrowed down is the area on the far driver side and back area of the engine. Is that contraption a brake booster of sorts? It looks similar to what I have on my 3.2 that is notorious for leaking. In a million searches on the 2.5T I can't really find anyone mentioning having an oil leak there but there is some wetness in the area. I know there's a cam seal on that side as well. Where would a leak on that show? The driver side of the motor (except the rear part mentioned above) is totally dry.

[scot850]

Are you able to upload pictures of the oil leakage areas?

I recently had to work on an 02 XC70 with many oil leaks. Most were down to lack of maintenance and finally finding one source. It turned out to be the oil breather (PCV) hose up to the cylinder head is cracked and leaking oil onto the top of the engine.

The oil filler cap is common for leaks as they compress and leak.

In your case I would think it could be camshaft seals based on the amount of oil and location.

On the passenger (in this case RHS) of the car the leak could be the PCV is blocked, again cam seals, CVVT gaskets and finally check the power steering pump header tank is not leaking. They become porous with age and also the pipe to the power steering pumps leak with age.

If it is hard to tie down a specific area, try cleaning from the highest leak area and see if the oil leak returns and from where.

Good Luck!

Neil.

[JMD77]

Appreciate the reply. Not sure what I was thinking about a brake booster. anyways, it was the rear cam seal. I got it replaced, used the cam install tool. No issues. However, when I put that 10mm bolt back in to secure the "cup" looking device, I snugged it up with a quarter inch ratchet, nothing crazy at all, just about the same tension it took to remove it, and felt something move a little. Just kinda paranoid I jacked something up as far as moving the cam position or something. Would seem that would be difficult to mess up with a 10mm socket on a quarter inch drive but I dunno.

[josefloretovar]

I suggest using a smoke leak tester to check it out. Besides the area you've already identified, at least you can check other areas as well in one go.

[BlackBart]

... used the cam install tool. No issues. However, when I put that 10mm bolt back in to secure the "cup" looking device, I snugged it up with a quarter inch ratchet, nothing crazy at all, just about the same tension it took to remove it, and felt something move a little. Just kinda paranoid I jacked something up as far as moving the cam position or something. Would seem that would be difficult to mess up with a 10mm socket on a quarter inch drive but I dunno.

I broke one of those little cheap steel 7mm bolts on the cam lock tool, inside the camshaft. So be careful. They only need to be snugged to keep the teeth engaged in the back of the cams.

[JMD77]

... used the cam install tool. No issues. However, when I put that 10mm bolt back in to secure the "cup" looking device, I snugged it up with a quarter inch ratchet, nothing crazy at all, just about the same tension it took to remove it, and felt something move a little. Just kinda paranoid I jacked something up as far as moving the cam position or something. Would seem that would be difficult to mess up with a 10mm socket on a quarter inch drive but I dunno.

I broke one of those little cheap steel 7mm bolts on the cam lock tool, inside the camshaft. So be careful. They only need to be snugged to keep the teeth engaged in the back of the cams.

Ouch. Well luckly I didn't break the install tool bolt or anything, but I guess I'm not a fan of the tool at all now. It is a super tight fit to even get the seal onto the tool to begin with and you have to press the seal "backwards" (the opposite direction it goes onto the motor) onto the tool to start the whole process and for whatever reason the inner rubber lip of the seal folded inwards while pressing it onto the install tool. So now I gotta try again. Seems maybe just pressing on by hand to the motor and using a socket to tap it on is a better way. Or I'm too dumb to figure the tool out.

[jonesg]

the old seal is a good way to tap the new into place.

[cn90]

If minor leak, leave it alone until you need to replace the front cam seals...then do everything VVT Exhaust Hub, seals x 4.

All the tricks are in the DIY 2007 S60 VVT diy I wrote a while back.

[erikv11]

... used the cam install tool. No issues. However, when I put that 10mm bolt back in to secure the "cup" looking device, I snugged it up with a quarter inch ratchet, nothing crazy at all, just about the same tension it took to remove it, and felt something move a little. Just kinda paranoid I jacked something up as far as moving the cam position or something. Would seem that would be difficult to mess up with a 10mm socket on a quarter inch drive but I dunno.

I broke one of those little cheap steel 7mm bolts on the cam lock tool, inside the camshaft. So be careful. They only need to be snugged to keep the teeth engaged in the back of the cams.

This is great advice - because of other stories like this, first thing I did with my set of cheap cam tools was replace the bolts with real ones, before using the tool.

[JMD77]

Appreciate the replies. Removed the entire PCV system to ensure there were no issues there causing the cam seal leak. I expected some crud and buildup but it was surprisingly clean. The port to the oil pan showed zero crud. took a long piece of pex and blew thru it and heard the oil splashing around. I didn't have much fun removing all of it. Had to remove the thermostat to get to the last bolt, so just went ahead with new thermostat and pcv stuff. Trying to keep the economy going you know.