Oil cap seal leak - how can we stop it

For some reason the back of my engine is full of oil dripping all the way down to the drive axles.
I'm loosing enough oil between oil changes, that it goes from just at the right top limit to below the bottom limit between oil changes. How quick, I don't know for sure - because i've just started paying attention to it - it might be worse than leaking that much in 10k miles - but i'm thinking oil cap leak is definitely to blame for at least some of the oil on the back of the engine - if not all.
This engine cover i cleaned at the last oil change (removed the previous oil splash on it) and it was not oily at all after i replaced the oil last. And now - after 10k miles ... it's back and my oil level went down also going down also.

This is the top of the valve cover that allows the cap to screw into.

In this picture you'll see that the leak seems even above the exhaust header mounting screws.

I tried a close-up of the area behind the oil cap above the headers

I'm thinking maybe this cap should have some type of rubber seal? It does screw relatively tight, but i can't understand how metal on metal is suppose to make a oil proof seal. No wonder it's leaking.

On the other hand i can't seem to find where the rubber seal would go or where it would be missing from.
Anyway - let me know what you think

I'm just trying to make sense of where this is coming from and try to figure out a way to stop it. It'll probably be quite a job to clean the back of that engine of all that accumulated oil.

I would pop the rubber seal out and have a feel, see if it's gone hard. Another thing you could try for now is to stick something under the seal to make it tighter but order a new seal or cap in the meantime.

If sand or grit is between seal and cap, it will leak. Take seal out and clean it and the cap. Replace seal if hardened. When rotating cap, it should take some effort as seal compresses. If cap turns easy, get a new seal or the whole cap.

BEEnTDI said:

I'm thinking maybe this cap should have some type of rubber seal? It does screw relatively tight, but i can't understand how metal on metal is suppose to make a oil proof seal. No wonder it's leaking.

On the other hand i can't seem to find where the rubber seal would go or where it would be missing from.
Anyway - let me know what you think

Click to expand...

So just go buy a new cap. It will come with the correct seal on it already.

06A103483D gasket