Hi All,

First time poster. Reaching out to this community to potentially get a second opinion on a mysterious oil leak that I am dealing with. I recently bought a 1997 CRV with 195000km on it. I paid 2k, so very little. But its certainly a fixer upper...

I recently changed the timing belt, waterpump, all the accessory belts, cam seals, front main seal, valve cover gasket, and this weekend changed the oil pan gasket (thinking that this was the source of my leak). After finishing the job, I drove it around and still had leaking oil. I thought I may have screwed up with the oil pan gasket as it was dripping off the rear left corner of the oil pan - I thought I left a gasket washer on there and I was going to have to do it again, but after I got under the car and took a closer look, I realized the leak was coming from above the gasket. I confirmed this by putting a bunched-up paper towel above the oil pan gasket (see photo), and the leak/drip stopped - its coming from above.

So, my question to all of you. Would the only source of this be the front main seal? I guess it could be the cam seals, but i doubt they would leak that much (its a constant drip when the car runs, but not when its off). I replaced all of these recently, but maybe I messed up the install? I didnt have a tool to insert the front seal, so maybe when I hit it in with the handle of a screwdriver, it contorted or something?

I have to re-adjust the valves after I adjusted them last week as they seem to be too loud (probably a little loose), so checking on the cam seals wont be a big deal. What will be a big deal, is completely tearing down the engine again to get to the front main seal. So I want to be very certain that this is the source of the leak before starting the job. Is there anything around that area other than that seal that could be causing the leak? I guess it could be a head gasket too?

Thanks in advance! I will attach a few pics to show you the leak, and specifically where I put the paper towel that stopped the leak. I just changed the oil so its fresh oil thats leaking out.



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