1.4Tdci Oil Leak

[Dave_O]

So I come out from work and see a small, saucer-sized oil patch by the L/H front wheel. Oh joy! Not been leaking prior to this - I had my head under the front the day before. It's a 42-mile trip home - 3/4 of the way and we go into limp mode, and the oil light starts flashing on some of the tighter bends (it's 3 a.m. and these are B/unclassified roads).

Get up in the morning, and there's !Removed! oil everywhere! From the top of the header tank all the way down. Must be the crank seal! There's nothing else up that end. Oh well - I needed to change the cambelt anyway.

Fast forward to this morning: Armed with the bits, I drop the lower cover off and.... it's completely dry inside. So it's not the crank seal. It must be the driveshaft throwing the oil up, but where the hell is it from? Sump gasket? Doesn't strike me as that likely - not to go from zero to hosepipe in the space of 100 miles. But I can't think of any other source at that end of the engine.

Can anyone with a better knowledge of these engines suggest a likely culprit? Needless to say, the local dealer won't have a sump gasket in stock either.......

Thanks,

Dave

Limp mode down to the crank sensor connection being drowned btw.

Edit: Do these have a gsket? Looking online it seems not......

[Dave O]

Well I found the source of the leak. Having cleaned everything down, I realised that the header tank was still Black. Yup- full of oil. Not the cream normally associated with a head gasket though - pure Black oil.

So head gasket. But then I remembered something about the oil coolers being a weak point, and possibly failing following an impact (hit a !Removed! deer a couple of days before). Anyone any experience of the cooler issue? It just seems a bit too much of a coincidence that the head would let go just now....

Dave

[Ptek2004]

Did you resolve the issue