Ok, 05 clunker dribbling a small amount of oil......appearing to come from front seal. . Pulled the balancer and popped in a new seal.....found nothing unusual. Seemed to have done the trick. Three weeks later notice a fair about of oil again, front seal . area. Must be the oil pan gasket. Spring for a new Felpro gaskit and man what a tough job it was removing the original gasket.......dang thing was super glued to the pan. I assume factory did it that way. Had to take a razor knife to cut as much as possible off and then a wire grinder to clean up contact area. New gasket seemed to seal up very good.......guess what , one day driving.......oil still leaking. I must have a problem with the first seal I installed. Got a Felpro seal this time and am preparing to go back in.......is there something else that could be leaking up front I am missing. The timing belt looked good and dry and I saw no signs of oil from above. I felt pretty good the crank was not nicked or seal wast damaged during installation..........just must have missed something.....any ideas....

 

There is a plastic cover on the left side of the Valve Cover...check it.

 

jpk,, are you referring to the camshaft plug where the dizzy would go in older engines? I have heard that that O ring does go bad and does go leaking. But that is high up on the passenger side and mine seems to be dripping from around the front seal area. I cannot see any evidence of any oil from up high on the motor. Now I suppose if oil were leaking from the camshaft sprocket on the inside the belt cover, the T belt would wet with oil....but it is dry. Plan to pull it down again soon as I get a few hours...thanks

 

@ jpk - wrong side of the engine

bandit, there isn't a lot going on in terms of oil on that side of the engine. you have it all - cam seal, crank seal, and oil pan. but the assumption about the TB being wet from oil leaking is false - that would be a catastrophic failure for the timing belt. so a dry belt (as it should be) tells you nothing about the condition of that seal. as for the front seal having gone bad, I've seen it where a seal was so hardened that it wore a groove into the sealing surface and would no longer seal up even with a new seal.

also, the valve cover gasket is actually a more likely place for your leak. I know you said no evidence of anything higher, but oil has a funny way about it... worth a check before you start to tear down the crank area again.