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Check your external seals - camshaft seal, rocker cover gasket, timing cover seal.   [guest]

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If your engine is burning oil, blue or black smoke will come out the tailpipe (exhaust). Replace your valve stem oil seals. Use a universal overhead valve spring compressor and a compressed air adapter to keep the valve from falling into the engine.   [guest]

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Although technically it's very easy to change a sump gasket, it's time-consuming. It's a very large and oddly shaped gasket with usually about 20 holes in it for the small bolts. You need to spend about 1.5 hours scraping and sandpapering down the engine block surface where the sump connects to as well as the sump connecting surface (easy to do with the sump out of the car). Working under the engine scraping away at traces of the old gasket is not easy work. Then you have to install the gasket with gasket sealant completely covering both sides of it. Then, progressively putting in and tightening the 20 bolts takes a lot of time, as that is all done from under the car.   [guest]

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An exhaustive list of possible sources of oil leaks(I own an early Magna, but most cars have the same basic seals):

rocker cover gasket
other rocker cover rubber seals
camshaft seal
timing cover seal
timing cover gaskets
rear main bearing seal
oil sump gasket
valve stem oil seals   [guest]

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When you install a cylinder head, pay careful attention to a few areas prone to oil leaks.

Buy a compression and oil resistant sealant (I use Greymax by Loctite) and smear a reasonably thick (2mm) coat around the entire timing cover surface, including where it joins to the engine block. This area is a lot narrower than the main block to head areas, so leaks oil much more often. Wait 24 hours to let it set.

Also smear the sealant around any rubber bungs or curved areas such as where the rocker cover curves around the ignition lead chambers.

Although my car is 20 years old this year, a combination of using this sealant and replacing all the oil seals (pref. with polyurethane instead of rubber where you can) means it now leaks no oil at all, saving money. Oil leaks start small and get larger with time, so the money saved can get quite significant with current (early 2008) oil prices.

Another oil leak could be at your oil pressure sensor - just buy a new one. The rubber seal inside it leaks over time.   [guest]

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