Oil leak following PCV, Oil Cooler Line and Timing Belt replacement

rasense · Post by **rasense** » 13 Oct 2017, 09:09

Greetings all,

1998 V70 XC 231K miles.

Just bought this car about a month ago. I have been working through all of the crucial maintenance jobs on this car and have almost wrapped them up.

I finished the oil cooler lines this morning, drove to work (pushed the car pretty hard) and my car is still leaking pretty badly from the engine near the front of the car. I have done the PCV system, timing, serpentine belt/WP, tensioner, pulley, oil sump o-rings, and as said the oil cooler lines. I had thought that the cooler lines were the culprit for this leak, but I was wrong.

My question is, the PCV breather box that I installed didn't have clamps for the lower port. I talked to the local Volvo shop, and they said that it usually doesn't. If I remember correctly, the port looked pretty good when I installed the box. Has anyone had a similar leak after doing PCV? I am 99% positive it is not the front cam seals (saw no oil there when doing the timing). Just want to see if anyone has any input before I pull the manifold off again. And, I am REALLY hoping that it's not the chemical gasket failing from when I did the oil sump o-rings, but have read that this is unlikely because there is not much pressure in the oil sump. Don't want to do that job again. EVER.

Thanks in advance.

Post by **scot850** » 13 Oct 2017, 11:14

Check that you got the 2 pipes on the top of the catch tank the correct way around. Several have found out that fitting them the wrong way around seems to lead to oil leaks.

Did you use Volvo parts for the PCV service? I once bought a kit with aftermarket hoses and the short "L" shapes one that returns from the catch tank side into the front of the block split within a short distance.

The short pipe at the bottom of the block to the catch tank has no clips on it. Originally they did as they were mostly rubber, but now with the metal collar the PCV catch tank holds it in place with its mounting bolts.

Finally, did you check the PTC nipple in the turbo intake pipe is clear?

Neil.

Post by **erikv11** » 13 Oct 2017, 12:01

I would suggest a couple follow up questions about the oil cooler lines. Did you check very carefully where the aluminum thermostat bolts to the block? This is a problematic install for a couple reasons. Namely the thermostat metal is soft and very easy to bend the surface where it mounts, e.g. just from over-tightening, plus it can be a PITA (as you may well recall) to correctly install both the o-rings on the cooler lines, and the rectangular gasket on the thermostat.

Presumably the cooler hose connections to the radiator are good? If you don't get the spacer and o-rings right in there, and the clips in the proper orientation, those will leak too.

Post by **scot850** » 13 Oct 2017, 14:49

Is it possible to take a couple of pictures and post of where the oil is appearing?

Neil

rasense · Post by **rasense** » 16 Oct 2017, 13:19

Hi all,

Sorry for delayed response, I was out of town this weekend. I took the manifold off on Friday to see if I could pinpoint the leak. The PCV box was completely dry, and majority of the oil did not appear to be coming from any of the hoses in the PCV. I thought that maybe the dipstick O-ring was the culprit, so I replaced that. Put everything back together, to a hard drive up the canyon near my house, came back and was still leaking. Chalking it up to possible cam seals, I ended up adding Blue Devil to at least slow the leak. I drove about 3.5 hours, over two mountain passes on both Saturday and Sunday, stopping every hour or so to check oil level. I made sure to not really push the car into boost (no fun). While the leak persisted, the level did not go down enough to justify adding any oil. I am going to take it to the car wash and give it another good cleaning to see if the flow is any different. I can post a photo once I do that, I don't think that it would be any use right now.

Answers to above questions to follow

rasense · Post by **rasense** » 16 Oct 2017, 13:22

scot850 wrote: 13 Oct 2017, 11:14 Check that you got the 2 pipes on the top of the catch tank the correct way around. Several have found out that fitting them the wrong way around seems to lead to oil leaks.

I am 99% positive that I installed the hoses correctly.

Did you use Volvo parts for the PCV service? I once bought a kit with aftermarket hoses and the short "L" shapes one that returns from the catch tank side into the front of the block split within a short distance.
No, I used a kit from IPD. Here is the link. https://www.ipdusa.com/products/11269/1 ... system-kit I saw no oil from any of the hoses, and the sleeve fitting had some oil but it was apparent that was not the source. Also, not a drop of oil on the breather box.

The short pipe at the bottom of the block to the catch tank has no clips on it. Originally they did as they were mostly rubber, but now with the metal collar the PCV catch tank holds it in place with its mounting bolts.

Finally, did you check the PTC nipple in the turbo intake pipe is clear?
I cleared the PTC nipple during original install.

Neil.

rasense · Post by **rasense** » 16 Oct 2017, 13:25

erikv11 wrote: 13 Oct 2017, 12:01 I would suggest a couple follow up questions about the oil cooler lines. Did you check very carefully where the aluminum thermostat bolts to the block? This is a problematic install for a couple reasons. Namely the thermostat metal is soft and very easy to bend the surface where it mounts, e.g. just from over-tightening, plus it can be a PITA (as you may well recall) to correctly install both the o-rings on the cooler lines, and the rectangular gasket on the thermostat. I did not remove the thermostat with the oil cooler line install. I did remove it when I dropped the oil pan to do the sump o-rings, but I don't see that as the source for this leak.

Presumably the cooler hose connections to the radiator are good? If you don't get the spacer and o-rings right in there, and the clips in the proper orientation, those will leak too.

Yes, they look good. No oil on the hoses since I did that replacement.

rasense · Post by **rasense** » 18 Oct 2017, 20:14

OK, I got everything cleaned up tonight and took some photos. I took before photo, and then went for a quick drive so that it would leak, but not too much to obscure the path of the oil.

: Before photo of oil pan; IMG_0884.JPG (70.04 KiB) Viewed 4168 times

: After photo pf oil pan with flow pattern; IMG_0885.JPG (27.77 KiB) Viewed 4168 times

: After photo of oil pan looking upward; IMG_0887.JPG (62.5 KiB) Viewed 4168 times

I attempted to get photos looking downward towards the lip on the block beneath the intake manifold, but it is too tight in there to get anything worthwhile. There is oil pooled to the right of the PCV breather box on that lip as well as the lip that the oil pan bolts bolt into. I checked the oil thermostat and it is dry, the breather box is still dry, no evidence of oil coming from crankshaft seal, or from front cam seals (removed timing belt cover and looked through cam gears). Here are the two best photos I could get looking down into the engine bay.

: Looking downward, notice pooled oil, but dry wiring loom; IMG_0890.JPG (75.08 KiB) Viewed 4168 times

: Looking downward past dipstick tube; IMG_0889.JPG (52.83 KiB) Viewed 4168 times

As a final possible solution, I slowly removed the four bolts one at a time from the oil pan that were in the area with the most oil and reapplied high temp thread sealer and tightened them down.

So, unless that worked (shall see tomorrow), I am at a loss besides redoing the PCV system. I am hesitant to do so for obvious reasons, and also that it does not seem to be the source, but maybe I am wrong. Lastly, the crankcase has negative pressure--not sure if that would help eliminate any culprits.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Post by **scot850** » 18 Oct 2017, 21:55

Hate to say this, but looks like classic PCV oil leak.

Neil.

Post by **erikv11** » 18 Oct 2017, 22:49

Seems to be a pretty fast leak.

Because of this "... There is oil pooled to the right of the PCV breather box on that lip as well as the lip that the oil pan bolts bolt into" the problem can;t be the lower PCV hose where it attaches to the block. So maybe the aged one on the "top right corner" of the oil trap? Note that hose has two part numbers, you can't get by with the wrong one it won't match up properly to the attachment point on the block. But as fast as it is leaking, it's almost like the hose isn't even attached.