Club 80-90 Forums

Hello all

My 1988 1.6 TD Westy seems to have developed an oil leak. On long journeys (an hour or more) I have been noticing a small number of specks of oil on my rear window and tailgate and very occasionally a few drops of oil where I'm parked in front of my house. I'm not mechanically inclined so my strategy for dealing with this was to keep an eye on the oil level and top it up as necessary.

Yesterday though I after returning from being parked up for 2 hours I noticed a small puddle (size of palm of my hand). Today after being parked up for a simmilar period of time I found an even bigger leak of oil under my van. I can see drips of oil on the tinware under the engine. It seems to collect on the left hand side of the engine area. This appears to be an intermittant problem and does not happen every time I leave the engine to cool.

I have booked my van in at my local garage next week for them to diagnose the problem. I am worried about the problem requiring a costly repair. I am reasonably confident that although they are unfamiliar with T25s, my garage (specialising in passenger and small comercial deisel engine repairs) will be able to fix the problem, but given their unfamiliarity with these vahicles I would like to make sure they accurately diagnose the leak.

Given my lack of experience with engine repair, this sort of mechanical problem is a complete unkown for me and does present somewhat of a worrysome challenge. Could anyone suggest what the most likely sources of my oil leak are? Is there anyway I can verify the source of the leak myself?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

theres a good chance.its the crankshaft oil seal.or dipstick seal..have a read of this thread.https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=49854

It could be coming from anywhere to be honest.
How I found mine was to remove the tinware then paint some gunk on it (that's what its called and can be purchased from Halfwits) this can then be washed off with water to leave a nice clean engine.
Then the leak should show itself, as it' much easier to see on a clean engine than one thats covered in oil.
But I would definitely remove the tinware first as it alows a lot more light into the engine compartment and also the tinware can make the leak look like it's coming from one place, when it's actually coming from somewhere completely different.
Hope this helps a bit.
Rob.

On mine I thought this was from where the pipe was missing off the dump valve. I tightened the screw in and drastically reduced the specs on the tailgate. If its your dump valve you'll have oil all over the air filter housing. If not, I'm with the get the tinware off and have a look