ST184 5S-FE Oil Leak

[Mk1_Oz]

Still failrly new to Celicas but all the issues I am having are forcing me to learn fast!!!

The car recently ran itself dry of oil - the oil light started to come on but the young lad didn't seem to think it important to tell me or to check the oil. I put around 3.5 - 4.0L of oil in it so it was VERY low. Seems to still be hanging together but who knows how much additional wear the motor now has. Anyway.....

I took the plastic undertry off and had a good poke around. When running the engine is dripping oil quite quickly from the front just above the sump gasket line. I am not familiar with these engines so cannot work out exactly what I am looking at. The arrows show where the oil is coming from:

In the last pic the oil is coming from behind the black plastic cover from somewhere in that gap.

Can anybody help me out with:

1. Where is the likely source? What is behind there that I don't know about?

2. Likely to be a gasket or a seal???

3. Is this an engine out fix?

Appreciate your assistance as I do not have any reference books or manuals.

[trentmeyer23]

There are a number of seals behind the timing cover. You have the camshaft seal, crankshaft seal, oil pump, gasket and oil pump seal. They are all common failures, especially if the engine has quite a kilometres on it.

Until you can get the covers off and clean it/diagnose it correctly it is hard to say which has failed.

These seals can all be replaced with the engine in the vehicle, I would suggest buying a timing belt kit and all applicable seals for that side of the engine(including valve cover seal) since you will have it apart anyways.

[Mk1_Oz]

Cheers mate. I have just found an excellent write up on the toyotanation forum detailing how to replace all these seals (half way thru reading it). Yes it looks like replacing the lot is a good move anyway. Also, the engine now has 200,000km on it and the timing belts are supposed to be changed every 100,000km so may as well go for it! I hate working on oily engines though.....gr

Do people tend to replace the oil pump at these sorts of distances (125,000 miles in your speak)? Might chuck a new water pump in there if it isn't too pricey just not sure about the oil pump.

[trentmeyer23]

Generally the oil pump is fine to be re-used, just replace the seals. Replacing the water pump is a good idea though.

[Mk1_Oz]

Well don't I regret starting this job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AUD$460 in parts to start with.

Anybody got any good ideas for pulling the harmonic balancer off the crank? Mine has 2 holes in it that do not appear to be threaded and also a small circular dish next to one of the holes. I have made up a puller that grabs behind the larger of the 2 pullies and uses a bolt to push against the crank. No dice. Just tore through the 4mm steel I made it from without budging one little bit. I don't have an oxy torch so thought I would apply some heat (for ages!) with a hairdryer just incase it heated it up enough to loosen. Got too hot to touch but no dice.

I cannot see how a puller from the shop/store would work due to there not being any threaded holes unless the 2 holes I have have threads way down deep inside them?

At a loss. Taken me 6 hours to remove the top timing cover, the right side engine mount and now trying to get the harmonic balancer off so that I can remove the bottom timing cover. Well cheesed off at the moment.

PS - it appears the Aussie cars have some differences to the US ones that are shown in the Haynes manual.

PPS - time for a bigger hammer!

[trentmeyer23]

Oxy is a bad idea as the balancers normally have rubber in them.

Those holes should have threads in them, worst case you may need to buy a large gear puller. You may also need to spray some INOX, RP7 or CRC on it to break any rust or corrosion. You could also use a freeze spray like CRC Freeze Off.

That is a lot of money for those parts, are they genuine?

[Mk1_Oz]

Not genuine parts.

Dayco(?) Timing Belt/water pump kit $265

AC & Alt belts $53

Cam cover seal kit $43

Oil $33

Distilled water $10

RTV $10

Degreaser $9

Yes those holes turned out to be threaded deep inside so I made up a second puller using them. Much simpler and worked a treat. Got the camshaft seal in and new water pump on. Crank seal tomorrow then oil pump seals then cam cover seals then bolt it all back together. Took me AGES to get the right side engine mount bracket off as none of my sockets or spanners would get onto the nut. Ended up making a 30x12x12mm block of aluminium to use in the end of a socket that a spanner would then get onto. NOT looking forward to putting it back in tomorrow!!

An item of concern. The harmonic balancer now has a couple of chips out of the edge of the power steering pulley (the smaller of the two). Is this likely to cause issues with the balancer no longer being in balance??? It si only about 3mm of the edge and about an inch or 2 long so very little weight. Thoughts???

[trentmeyer23]

Should be fine.