Hi all, hoping someone has a suggestion for me. Yesterday I arrived home after a 10 minute drive and there was white smoke coming out the passenger side of engine bay. I opened the hood and found it was wet on passenger side of engine bay around the starter, spread out pretty far but could not identify the source. First thought was a coolant leak, but now I think the fluid is oil, unsure. I let it cool overnight and took a video of a start this morning. It looks like a large spark is coming from the connection at the starter solenoid to the wire to the ignition relay. I have not had any trouble so far starting the car. If anyone has any advice about how to proceed, I would appreciate it very much, thanks.

 

If it's oil then I would first check around the distributor and see if it's coming from underneath it. It's a common place for an oil leak to happen and maybe it's been going on a while with your car. You could also check to see if it's transmission fluid, perhaps the vent tube up on top there is puking up fluid and it's igniting.

Also reach around behind the engine, or look from underneath in the back area and see if anything there is leaking down towards that area.

 

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, very helpful. I think your first guess was correct - at least some of the fluid seems to be oil leaking from the distributor. I did also find some coolant on top of the transmission, but no sign of transmission fluid. As best as I can tell, the area behind the engine is dry.

So next steps would be to remove the distributor and determine
if significant oil is inside the distributor --> replace distributor (or just the cap seal and o ring?)
otherwise --> replace the o ring

Then once that's taken care of, replace the starter?

Thanks again for helping me out

 

OK so I removed the distributor. The larger gasket... the cap seal is torn. I will replace the cap seal and the o ring, unless you have reason to suggest I replace the entire distributor. The cap itself looks ok. Thanks

 

I think if you replace the gasket where the leak is, clean out the distributor thoroughly, the Distributor is probably fine.

I think the other thing you will have to do it clean the whole area beneath as well to see if you got the leak, or just happened to find a leak that's not related.

 

Will do. I ordered the gasket, will clean the area in the meantime. Thanks

 

I might also consider , while waiting, that you perhaps wrap up the cables where the sparking occurred to make sure it's not grounding out on anything else, or insulation is worn away/missing. In case it's a coincidence that the sparking and the leak happened and are not related.

 

Playing the video in slow motion - or frame by frame it appears the spark is coming from the connector to the solenoid (assuming that's the solenoid). Could oil on/around the connector cause a spark like that?