Help with oil leaks and diagnosis (2005 Outback XT)

[bennyt]

Hi folks, any help massively appreciated before I go broke.

 

 

To cut a long story short I have at least a couple of very slow oil leaks. The engine is supposed to be rebuilt about 10k miles ago (just before I got it) and it seems good otherwise. I have now been to three different shops so get a diagnosis (all Subaru specialist) each of which has its own set of problems.

 

 

 

1) First guy diagnoses valve cover gaskets, didn't seem interested (and charged $150 for a driver belt and an oil change).

 

 

 

2) Main dealer (Oakland, CA). They charged $200 for an inspection and then said it would need a tear down to identify the causes. I.e. about $3000. Incidentally, they quoted me $406 for a compression test. LOL

 

 

3) I went out of town for something cheaper. My buddy lives in Sacramento so I got him to take the car to a shop that looked decent enough. After charging $400 to strip the intake manifold to find the leak, he said he found a cracked hose on the crank case, replaced some copper washers, and declared it fixed. Also said the cam seals were fine.

 

 

 

Well the pictures attached show the state of under the engine after my buddy drove it back from Sacramento (about 2 hours). Oil all over the subframe, looks due to hoses not clamped on top of the engine. I assume these are breather hoses? and supposed to be clamped, not least because one of them has the marks from a previous clamp. No idea if this was a problem before. I assume I can just reclamp, clean up and hope for the best?

 

 

 

The drivers side cam cover however still has a slow drip. This is the same problem as before. I only just realised I could pull this off, so I had a look. Timing belt is clean but its hard to see if there is a leak from behind the cam pullies or elsewhere. The bottom pully seems to be damaged?? There does seem to be leakage from behind the cam cover (see photo), so it may be running down and collecting at the bottom.

 

 

I don't have the time, space or resources to deal with this myself right now, but I would like to find out exactly what the issues and then *hopefully* find someone competent to look at it and fix it.

 

 

 

I guess the question is, what are the possible problems here? Cam seals, valve cover gaskets, heads?! (No one has yet suggested the heads are bad btw). Other issues?

 

 

Is there anything simple I can do to identify a specific cause? Apart from just cleaning it and monitoring?

 

 

Thanks

[lilredwagon]

It looks like coolant, not oil. Check your hoses and water lines, if they look ok, it could always be a head gasket. Have you been monitoring the fluid levels? If you have moisture all over the bottom of your car after a 2 hr drive, then either your oil level or coolant level is going to be dropping pretty quickly.

[relative4]

The pooling at the top of the passenger valve cover suggests the turbo reservoir. The substantial leakage around the driver-side timing cover is unusual; typically it happens down the passenger-side timing cover, from the upper radiator hose where it clamps to the crosspipe. You'll need to look on top of the block, under the intake manifold. Basically everything related to the crosspipe and turbo reservoir. Maybe the guy who stripped your intake manifold looking for oil leaks disturbed a coolant connection. Could be as simple as the coolant temp sensor on the front of the crosspipe.

[bennyt]

Thanks - sorry the green color looks like coolant but it isn't. I believe this is because the main dealer put dye into the oil to locate the leaks. It looks very green with the camera flash but it is defintely engine oil.

 

 

 

I have never needed to top up the oil - the leaks are all slow but persistent.

[relative4]

In that case, you need to look up. The bottom of the engine, where all leaks eventually end up, tells you nothing. Follow each leak upward to its source.

 

The second / top right picture, of the passenger valve cover, looks like a cracked breather hose. That's common, especially if it was disconnected for a valve cover gasket job. When you get it off, or maybe if you can get a little mirror behind it, you'll likely find a crack right where it goes over the tube.

[bennyt]

The breather hose was pulled off (by the garage) specifically to find the leak. But they forgot to re-clamp these hoses, as you can see. I'll check for cracks tonight.

 

Are they both breather lines? It looks like the left one has leaked a fair bit of oil - should that much oil be coming out of the breather hose?

 

Also, the car is over filled with a oil (another shit job by a different garage - I figured it wasn't enough of a problem to deal with). I don't know how sensitive these engines are to excess oil - I guess that could be part of the problem too....

[relative4]

If memory serves, one came from the factory with a clamp, one did not. Neither should need one, they run more or less neutral pressure. Once one has cracked, no amount of clamping will stop it from leaking.

As long as the oil is not all the way past the first twist, you're fine.

[bennyt]

Ok cool. I told the mech about the apparent oil leak here and he thought it suggested a lot of blow by in the head, which was a concern. It's going into a different shop tomorrow for more inspection.

 

I'll check the oil again tonight. It was definitely over the full mark but I can't remember how much.

[ttnio]

are you by chance close to zipcode 94043 CA. ?

[bennyt]

No, I'm near Berkeley, but thanks!

 

So, here is an update:

 

relative4 was absolutely correct - the breather hose had split, probably during re-assembly of the intake manifold (after fixing a different hose and washers). There was in fact a small coolant leak too which may have made the timing area look worse.

 

It looks like the main leaks were coming from the hoses and connections to the head and / or block which seem to be fixed. The down side is that it looks like either the drivers side valve cover, or lower cam seal is seeping a little. However, on the plus side, this is slow and although irritating, I don't think there is anything seriously wrong. The shop said there was no point in pulling it apart until the timing belt needed doing (which is only about 12k miles old).

 

So, could have been worse.