Oil leak after timing belt change - HELP!

Chris B

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2001
Location
N. central Illinois
TDI
2002 Jetta Wagon 5 spd
I've got a small issue (maybe a large issue) that I noticed tonight while checking the oil.

I did the 80K timing belt replacement about two months ago at a fellow TDIer's house. I used the full 100K parts set from Dieselgeek. Everything went quite well. I did the change around 78K miles.

At around 80K, I did my usual oil change, and everything looked nice and dry, and timing belt tension was spot on.

Tonight, with about 82,500 on the clock, I checked my oil and found it about 1/3 qt. low. I topped it off and thought to myself that there has to be oil going somewhere as this car doesn't burn that much in 10K miles. I looked under the belly pan and saw a fairly large area of oil. Shoot!!:mad:

I pulled off all the covers and had a look. The oil is definitely coming from the top passenger side of the engine, but I can't tell if it's valve cover or cam seal (which was replaced during the timing belt job).

Inside the timing belt cover is dry, the cam pulley is bone dry, no oil on the belt, etc. It doesn't appear the oil is coming out the camshaft portion of the seal, but maybe it's coming around the outside of the seal and running down the block?

What's my next course of action? Pull the valve cover and check the cam seal? Anyone replaced the cam seal without having to tear anything else apart? I realize the cam pulley will have to come off, but I assume I can just release timing belt tension, lock the cam, etc. to remove the cam pulley and replace the seal?

Any tips for installing the new seal so I don't have to repeat this?

Thanks!!

Chris
 

catmandoo

Veteran Member
Joined
May 9, 2005
Location
ia
TDI
2000 jetta gls tdi,91 2dr jetta gl n/a diesel
i ran into this problem myself after my t-belt change,but mine leaked before it got hot enough to check the timing.anyway,i mentioned this to them at dieselgeek on what i found and they had a post on here about the cam seal replacement,what happened to me was the lip of the seal got caught in that stupid keyway groove and doubled the lip over,i bet if you pull the seal you'll see thats probably what happened,anyway the fix is pretty easy just wrap a little electrical tape around the cam over the keyway and press the seal on and remove the tape.
 

jasonTDI

TDI GURU Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Apr 26, 2001
Location
Oregon, WI
TDI
20' RAM 3500 CCLB dually HO/Aisan. 2019 Cherokee 2.0T
If not that just do as you thought. Valve cover off, cam pulley off, replace seal. Did mine, hae done several others. If you need a seal PM me with your address. I have TON of them.
 

Chris B

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2001
Location
N. central Illinois
TDI
2002 Jetta Wagon 5 spd
Looking back on the job, there are two things I should have done: a) leave the seal damn well enough alone as the original seal was bone dry. Classic example of fixing what isn't broken. B) When I did the seal, not only did I not tape up the keyway, I didn't polish off the taper with steel wool nor did I add any silicone gasket material around the OD of the seal.

This was really pretty dumb, as a very large part of my previous job was to make tooling to install o-rings, seals, and wipers on hydraulic systems for convertible tops without damaging them. When installing a u-cup seals like the cam seal, you ALWAYS protect the ID of the seal with some sort of cap, guide, tape, etc. over any edges or threads on the shaft. Otherwise, you can pretty much guarantee a leak down the road.

Fortunately, it appears that doing the cam seal is pretty easy compared to the timing belt job as a whole. Just lock the cam and inj. pump, release tension on the belt, pop the pulley off and change out the seal. Still ticks me off that I've gotta get back into the engine to fix this....

Chris
 

LNXGUY

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 10, 2004
Location
Barrie, Ont, Canada
TDI
'05 Jetta TDI Wagon
Chris, you and me both have the exact same prob :) I didn't do anything to the keyway, now all of a sudden I have a leak on the passenger side..lol go figure....
 

Chris B

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2001
Location
N. central Illinois
TDI
2002 Jetta Wagon 5 spd
Update - Got the leak fixed. Took a drive up to JasonTDI yesterday afternoon and we replaced the seal. The seal that was leaking had a small portion of the inner lip folded back, right where I installed it over the keyway WITHOUT using tape. DUMB!:eek:

No telling how long it would have held before REALLY turning into a big leak, so it was nice that I was able to jump on it so fast, thanks to Jason.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Chris
 

lk4369

Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2004
Location
Troy, Oh
I also noticed an oil leak this week. Had the TB done about 1k miles ago an I have an oil leak also. My leak is on the drivers side near the valve cover. Should I replace the gasket? Has anyone else had a leak on this side after TB work? TIA
 

jasonTDI

TDI GURU Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Apr 26, 2001
Location
Oregon, WI
TDI
20' RAM 3500 CCLB dually HO/Aisan. 2019 Cherokee 2.0T
lk4369 said:
I also noticed an oil leak this week. Had the TB done about 1k miles ago an I have an oil leak also. My leak is on the drivers side near the valve cover. Should I replace the gasket? Has anyone else had a leak on this side after TB work? TIA
You need to replace the air pump seal. Not the valve cover. No seperate gasket for the valve cover.
 

jasonTDI

TDI GURU Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Apr 26, 2001
Location
Oregon, WI
TDI
20' RAM 3500 CCLB dually HO/Aisan. 2019 Cherokee 2.0T
Mass. Wine Guy said:
Was it a big job to replace the seal?
No. Takes an hour or so. Maybe a bit longer if your gabbing.
 
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