Oil leak help
 

Hello YotaTech,

​​​​​​Long time lurker here, first time posting.

All of you guys in the forum have been extremely helpful in getting my truck running and on the road.

I have a 1993 4Runner with a 3vze and in the last couple of weeks I've developed a oil leak that has been getting worse pretty rapidly and I'm now loosing about half to one quart of oil a week coming from the front of the motor.

Now it might be my oil pan or crank seal (I hope not) but I suspected a cam seal and pulled off the upper timing cover. The passenger side looks oily, but I can't tell if it is leaking from there or not.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...e119965557.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...7331cee37c.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...c6b803dd48.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...92c74be6e7.jpg

I was wondering if you guys can see anything that isn't apparent to me.

Thanks a ton in advance!

The first simple thing I would do is clean the motor completely.
If your loosing that much oil you shouldn't have a problem finding the leak after cleaning.

Always my advice, too, except that 1993_3VZE has the engine apart. He could clean it, reassemble it, then run it. But if the cam seals are the issue, they'll be covered back up.

So I think I'd clean the inside of timing cover as well as practical, then without reassembling anything, crank it. (Disconnect the primary lead to the distributor to stop spark, AND the connector to the VAF to stop fuel). At the rate you're leaking, cranking should develop enough oil pressure to tell you where the leak is.

I'll clean some stuff up when I get a day off of work. Hopefully tomorrow. Thanks for the ideas.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...c51dc764c7.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...f496b368a7.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...8b68c7f21e.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...a0bfb02194.jpg
so I finished tearing apart the front of the motor down to the timing belt. Before doing that, I tried to crank the engine and didn't see a difference in the amount of oil on the top of the motor. After taking off the rest of the covers, I'm seeing a lot of oil all over the front of the engine, and there was a decent amount pooling in the lowest timing cover.

I'm still not super sure which seal is leaking.

And after digging behind the last set of covers, I found this seal which looks pretty beat up and is damp with oil, and has a pool of oil beneath it. I think this is the culprit.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...cfdfcc200e.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.yot...bbde56a184.jpg

Chances are your correct. Time and temp takes its toll on rubber parts. Are you planning on replacing all the seals while you have it torn down this far? Check all your Idler bearings while your there. Its no fun having to go back in after all that work.

I'll probably replace both cam seals. I just don't know if I want to chance messing up the one that's still good. I also don't know for sure if I will rtv the new ones or not, the fsm says not to.

Well, I don't think I'm smarter than the Toyota engineers. So I know what I'd do.

Your "knock pin" (the pin that couples the cam to the cam sprocket) looks pretty dinged up. It's a $0.93 part, so I'd replace them both. DO look at the recess in the cam sprockets to see if they got torn up in the process. And even though your timing belt looks okay, it's been exposed to a lot of oil, so for the money that'd go to.

You got past removing the crank bolt without asking any questions here, and that's a step that's pretty tough for many (I think you need a fabricated tool to hold the crank against the torque, coming off AND going back on). How did you do it? (Same with the cam bolts.)

I managed to get both of them off with my air impact gun. It must've taken about 5 or so full tanks of my 10 gallon compressor to get the crank pulley off, and the cam pulleys put up slightly less of a fight.