Oil leaks on floor

[Alan4d]

Trying to trace significant oil leaks under Jag near front of engine, though the oil may not actually be coming from there that is the position of it on the floor. Any tips?

[Bryan_N]

@Alan4d

Trying to trace significant oil leaks under Jag near front of engine, though the oil may not actually be coming from there that is the position of it on the floor. Any tips?

Try ‘front oil seal’ in XJ40 archives . hope it isn’t this but - [xj40] front crankshaft oil seal

The more usual place for an AJ6 engine to leak oil is this -

[xj40] 1993 Head Gasket replacement

In reply to a message from fastbreak4 sent Fri 2 Jul 2004: Real Name? If you browse the XJ40 and Modern List archives in ‘Advance Search’ mode on the subject of ‘Head gasket’ you will find acres of posts on the subject by those who have experienced oil leaks and those who have fixed them. There are two ‘favourite’ sources of engine oil leaks in or near the cylinder head on AJ6 engines. The one that is usually accompanied by the smell of burning oil is a leak from the cam cover gasket be…

[Grooveman]

Alan …

Hmmm a jaguar with an oil leak , who ever heard of such a thing

If you have a leak near the front of the engine that means the entire bottom of the engine and transmission will probably be covered with oil due to the airstream blow back. So the first order of business will be to give the underside of the car a good cleaning. If you don’t have access to a lift then jack up the front of the car and use some heavy duty jack stands.

Now get under there with a couple cans of brake cleaner and some rags and brushes. Once you have the bottom cleaned up you can fire up the engine and let it run for a while and look for any leaks. No luck ? Get your car off the jacks and drive it around for a while. Now slide a newspaper under the engine and let is sit for a few hours. This should pinpoint the source of the leak.

A Common area is the oil cooler lines which is easily solved by removing the whole system and replacing it with an oil bypass fitting.

Another area to look at is the oil pressure transmitter (actually I just replaced mine that was leaking quite a bit)

Yet another common area is the cam cover gasket.

Hopefully it’s one of these easily fixed areas and not a more serious problem like an oil pan gasket or the oil seal at the front of the engine, fortunately this are rather rare.

[Alan4d]

Thanks Groove and Brian

I do not have an actual pool of oil, but persistent drops on the garage floor in several places (oil carried along parts?), so possibly not actually the front seal?

Cheers

[Grooveman]

Alan …

To find an oil leak you have to work from the front of the engine back and from the top to the bottom. At least this way you can see what areas are dry and eliminate them as possible culprits.

Give the engine a really good cleaning underneath and then it’s so-o-o much easier to pin point the leak.

[Mike_Stone]

@Alan4d

significant oil leaks under Jag near front of engine, though the oil may not actually be coming from there

I realize this thread is a bit long of tooth but I just had a similar-sounding leak fixed on my '94 and it was the oil seal for the auxiliary shaft (#8 in this diagram).

The seal itself was about US$50 but 4 hours labor were required (or shall I say billed) in addition.