Hello, I recently noticed white smoke coming from behind the engine block and a burning smell coming through the AC vents inside the car, I looked at the rocker cover and saw a black residue in the top left hand corner that was dried oil. 

I changed the rocker cover gasket yesterday and cleaned the whole area. However after letting the car run for a while I have noticed that there is a very small amount of fresh oil in the exact same place it was leaking from before the gasket change. Its only a very tiny amount of oil but it should be leaking after a new gasket change? 

I have torqued the bolts down in sequence and used silicone gasket sealant on the areas that were advised. 

Is it the gasket adjusting and will stop leaking in time, or is it a leak from somewhere else? 

On the diagram photo it's the area at bolt number 4

Any help is appreciated. 

Did you use a genuine ford gasket? If not I would order one and replace it again. 

It was an elring one from euro car parts. 

Elring are meant to be one of the best ones for gaskets aren't they? 

I've never had much issue with Elring products but for these cam cover gaskets, even the Vauxhall ones, its genuine every time.They are about £40 sadly.  

I will see how the car gets on for the next few weeks and if its bad then I will replace it again. 

Cheers for the help

I suggest you use some high temp. rtv silicon sealant around the gasket corners to prevent leaks. Its cheaper than buying another gasket and it will work.

I have used silicone sealant where it advised me too use it, I.e where the timing belt is on the half moons. Is it worth just unbokting the cover and adding a bit more silicone to all 4 corners? 

Cheers 

Yes exactly that

I've had no end of oil leaks after fitting non genuine cam cover seals, ford ones won't leak.

14 hours ago, iantt said:

I've had no end of oil leaks after fitting non genuine cam cover seals, ford ones won't leak.

Agree with this, fitted two aftermarket Victor Reinz rocker cover gaskets to my car. Both leaked in different places even after the application silicone RTV to seal it up. Bought a genuine gasket from a local dealer and have had no issues since.

Cheers for the replies, I will look into buying a Ford gasket. The gasket has been alright for now with no leaks and seems to be alright but I will keep an eye on it and if it starts too leak again I will purchase the Ford one. 

Thank you for the help

Just to add to this, 2 years ago I changed the cambelt on my Fiesta 1.4 only to notice a few months ago that I was getting slight oil leakage from the rear of the engine cover gasket. Then I had replaced the factory Ford gasket with a Febi one, because of how expensive the Ford one was to buy. 

After reading this post I bought the genuine Ford gasket and have now replaced the Febi one. I noticed that when I removed the engine/camshaft/rocker cover I could barely see the Febi gasket protruding from the recess it sits in. I removed the Febi gasket and measured its depth and compared it to the new Ford gasket.

Febi used gasket depth 7.6mm
Ford genuine new gasket depth 9.3mm  

There could be the chance that the 20 months the Febi gasket spent fitted has compressed it somewhat, so it would be worthwhile to measure a new one, but if there is a difference in gasket depth from new then this could be the reason as to why these tend to leak after a while.

 

I would try using a good sealant but first clean spotless with Brake cleaner and paper towells. A large mug of tea is vital for concentration.