1997 Accord LX F22B2, 315k miles (had it since 255k). For a while I've been seeing oil in the valley shown in this picture, and of course it runs down all below that. This spot is on the driver side, on top of the head, and almost directly above the water pump.

In the past I've replaced the distributor cam shaft o-ring, and two valve cover gaskets (Felpro), but oil kept showing up there (yes, I put RTV gasket maker in the cam shaft arch corners). So, I chalked it up to the cam shaft oil seal being the culprit and let it go, parking it in the grass. Anyway, recently I've had to top up the oil more and more. So, I finally said, enough is enough, and so I started where I was confident there was an oil leak....I replaced the cam shaft seal along with the front balancer shaft seal & added the retainer, replaced the crank shaft seal, and both timing belts, and the water pump. I used Honda seals, btw.

LO and BEHOLD, after completing the gut-wrenching work stated above and cleaning out the valley, I drove the car to work and back. There is STILL oil showing up there!!! The picture above is what I got.
Any help and ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

can you make a video showing the exact area in more detail ?

 

Yes, I can. First, maybe describing some will help, too, using my picture and another fairly recent member's thread pics (https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-...-leak-3315183/). It seems we could have the same leak, but he/she didn't follow up on their post.

Looking at my pic, if I soak up the oil that's in that rectangular crevice right above where those four "A"s are stamped into the head and then I drive the car a couple cycles or less, I can pop the hood and look in that crevice and find oil there. In my pic I also see a drop of oil on top of my new water pump housing.

One thing I noticed when I took the valve cover off to do all that work, I could not get the vc gasket that was on there to go back on. It was like it was stretched an inch larger than it should be. I had kept the previous gasket and it was not near as bad, so I used it instead.

 

If both gaskets were indeed Fel-Pro (perma-dry?) they do not seal. I actually never replaced the VC gasket on my original engine(300K+ miles) just cleaned off the corners and regooed.
I've tried using the Perma-Dry Fel-Pro gaskets in the past on other makes as well and its the same issue, seems like they fit. Leak like a sieve, and if removed they are stretched out pretty badly.
Use either Honda gaskets or Victor-Reinz(Mahle) gaskets. And if you replace the gasket itself, you will need to replace the grommets along with it as the height difference and compressability of the gaskets and grommets needs to be the same. Mix & matching those with new/old sets will not allow properly clamping on the VC and you will lack a proper seal.

 

the cam cap that holds the cam to the head needs rtv applied under it where it meets the head

if the cam has been installed recently that could also be the issue

 

Thanks! That's why I made sure to mention that both gaskets were Fel-pro (yes, it's PermaDry... maybe change it to PermaWet). Really, the only reason I originally touched the vc gasket was because my spark plugs were swimming in oil and the gasket came with the kit with the plug seals (sp plug seals are holding up ok so far). Considering I found the 2nd gasket stretched an inch, I suspected it might be the issue but didn't want to waste my time and money doing another, only to still have the same problem. That's the beauty of this forum...being able to talk to good people willing to help people who don't have the experience with these cars that they do.

A little bit about Fel-pro... they are no longer the supreme name with respect to gaskets. They were bought by Federal-Mogul in the late 90s, who I used to work for. Not that F-M is all bad, it's just not the excellent company that Fel-pro used to be, which was previously privately-owned. When I was there, F-M's philosophy wrt its pay & benefits (talent) was to be mediocre. After this, I think I'm done wrt F-M and Fel-pro... I did feel a bit indebted to them for the years they provided me with employment.

 

As far as I know, the cam shaft has not been removed from my car. I took the cam cage off to replace the spark plug seals, though. The previous owners told me they replaced the transmission somewhere around 200k and the timing belt/wp just before I bought it about 60k miles ago. PO was the son of a former co-worker. If he had the cam shaft out of it for any reason, I think he would've mentioned it, but ya never know (I didn't know him personally). I did discover some poor workmanship when I did the timing belt job recently (loose belts, left the small 6mm timing belt tensioner-assist bolt installed)

 

From my experience with this same engine I got rid of my leak at the same spot by replacing the cam seal.

 

Did that... oil still showing up there.

 

still waiting for that vid

 

I got a message saying .mp4 wasn't an acceptable file type.

 

OK, it's attached. Sorry, I've been really busy.

 

can you upload it to photobucket ?

 

I've never used it but willing to give it a shot.... got a lot going on at work and home (T-stat on my daughter's '09 Fusion), so it may be a bit.

 

Any hints on getting my video uploaded to photobucket? I created a free account. My video is 2.25 MB. I get 90% into the upload and it'll stop. EDIT: Photobucket note says it no longer supports video uploads.
BTW, the latest update with my car is:

I replaced the valve cover gasket again, and I used a Victor-Reinz kit this time, which included the washers, and used the black Permatex gasket maker in the four cam shaft bridges' corners. I followed the gasket maker instructions to the letter (hand-tightened the valve cover nuts then waited an hour to torque them down to 86 in-lb, then waited 24 hours to start the engine).

The V-R gasket seemed to fit so much better than the two previous Fel-pro gaskets. Both had stretched after being used, especially the last one. The V-R gasket fit so much better that I was confident it was going to fix the problem. BUT, yet again, oil has returned to the same crevice on the driver's side!!

 

just create a youtube account

 

OK, here it is: Thanks for your help, past, present, and any future help.

 

are you sure that's oil, it looks like liquid, like it's water

are you running coolant or straight water in the radiator ?

get a shot from the back more, can't tell where it's leaking from, it might be the head gasket right there

 

you might need to run a compression test

and also rent a coolant pressurizer and pressurize the radiator with the car off and see if it leaks there again

 

I'm quite sure it's oil, just based on smell and feel. At the time of the video I had fresh oil in the car, and I had just cleaned that crevice out after replacing the oil seals on the timing belt side. I could smell hot oil this morning when I got to work and got out of the car.

Fwiw, I run Zerex's Asian formula 50/50. I flushed everything & switched to that about 4 years ago (the previous owner had some dark green coolant in it). Around 2 years ago, the radiator neck crumbled while on my way to work. I noticed steam and the temp gauge start going up, but the gauge never got out of the acceptable range before I was able to shut it down. A few months before that, I had a radiator fan failure in the heat of the summer. While sitting at a traffic light, the a/c quit keeping up and then the temp gauge started creeping up. I was able to get to the interstate to get some air flow over the radiator to avoid the gauge getting above the acceptable range.