Itinerant Air-Cooled

Beginning yesterday, I have a substantial amount of oil that seems to be coming from the dipstick tube. I suppose it could be coming out of either the top of the tube where the dipstick mates to the tube, or from where the tube comes through the shroud.

I already pulled the fan off and although there is oil in the shroud, the hub seal is dry (not oily). The back of the fan itself is bone dry.
Also, I did the screwdriver trick to make my dipstick more secure in the tube (spreading the metal pieces). That didn't seem to help.

Now I just put on a Viton tube seal on Saturday. Coincidence? Perhaps...but that area seems pretty oil free.

2.0L Type IV

Excessive crankcase pressure? Breather clogged up, maybe?

Just a couple of things that come immediately to mind...

EZ Gruv wrote:Coincidence?

Heh. The are no coincidences...

I am the king of coincidences it seems; whenever I do a repair, something nearby gets jacked.

EZ Gruv wrote:I am the king of coincidences it seems; whenever I do a repair, something nearby gets jacked.

As someone who suffers from a similar impairment, breaking something while fixing something else is not a coincidence.

Picked up a box of o-rings of varying sizes at Pep Boys. I started with a 6mm ID stuffed way up in the cap. Figuring there was room for improvement, I stuck a 5mm ID ring on there as well.



Now I can feel the dipstick becoming snug in the tube.
I did the install in the Pep Boys parking lot and wiped up the oil that was on the engine tin.
Once I got home, I didn't notice any new oil.

I spent some time cleaning up everything once at home. I pulled the breather box apart and cleaned it as well as I could as well.



I ran it for a few minutes in the driveway with no leak. We'll see how it goes on the way to work tomorrow.

Make sure the crankcase vent system is working ok otherwise it's too much blowby not a good thing at all.

After the standard commute to work, there was no oil on the tin or anywhere else noticable. I took a new photo, but have no way to upload it at work.

We'll see what it looks like after I get home tonight.

Here is the area after a day's use:



Not too shabby.

Not to rain on your parade, but if a stock dipstick is not sealed, then you all you've done is hidden a symptom of a much larger problem.

RSorak 71Westy wrote:Not to rain on your parade, but if a stock dipstick is not sealed, then you all you've done is hidden a symptom of a much larger problem.

I am confused by this.

Are you saying, "if a stock dipstick was passing oil and you seal it, you have just hidden or masked the problem of excessive blow-by"?

Is that the "much larger problem"?

I have found that the dipstick is just the dipstick. It wants to be sealed to keep airborne contamination out of the oil, and its sealing is critical to the correct calibration of the fuel injection. If there is so much blowby that the dipstick is blowing oil, a fresh nice seal doesn't have a chance of keeping it back "and then allowing the front seal or breather gaskets to pop".
Generally, the bottom of the dipstick is under the liquid line, as is the oil fill pipe where the dipstick passes through. That means that there is absolutely no crankcase pressure that will ever have an effect on the air inside the dipstick tube that resides above the oil line. The filler cap-to-pipe has a different life. It can be affected by the crankcase air pressure and you can feel it as you loosen it on an idling engine.

Still confused.
Colin

Are you saying, "if a stock dipstick was passing oil and you seal it, you have just hidden or masked the problem of excessive blow-by"?

Yes exactly what I meant.

Hey Eric,

Kinda funny you got the exact same answer I gave you over on the Samba. PCP (positive crankcase pressure) is the reason you have oil coming out your dipstick, all the 0-rings in the world wont fix that.

73Kombi wrote:Hey Eric,

Kinda funny you got the exact same answer I gave you over on the Samba. PCP (positive crankcase pressure) is the reason you have oil coming out your dipstick, all the 0-rings in the world wont fix that.

I don't know that this is the conclusion we have drawn.

He stuck on a new seal (or two) and so far has reported that the oil is no longer leaking from the dipstick.

I suggested above that crankcase pressure actually is limited in its ability to enter the dipstick tube seeing as it dips below the oil line. Most dipstick leaks I have run across, other than an obvious leaky boot, are because the dipstick itself is bent or the cork gasket originally provided is long gone.
Colin

Amskeptic wrote:I don't know that this is the conclusion we have drawn.

He stuck on a new seal (or two) and so far has reported that the oil is no longer leaking from the dipstick.

True and I have done the same thing (o-ring) to mine back in September and it works fine around town, but at prolonged trips with high rpms I was still seeing oil leaking. Yes my engine is pretty tired, yet still trucking.

Amskeptic wrote:I suggested above that crankcase pressure actually is limited in its ability to enter the dipstick tube seeing as it dips below the oil line

This is actually pretty easy to test! I just went out and checked my oil...full. Then placed a piece of spare fuel line on the dip stick tube and blew into it. I got no resistance, maybe an occasional slight bubble sound, (think bong) but clearly, if the engine were running, and oil were in the heads and not just sitting in the sump, it would be exposed to PCP.

Still tryin' to learn.
Shawn

73Kombi wrote:I have done the same thing (o-ring) to mine back in September and it works fine around town, but at prolonged trips with high rpms I was still seeing oil leaking. Yes my engine is pretty tired,

. . . . thus proving my original point. A leaking dipstick is a symptom not a cause. There is a nice little bending trick you can do to the half piece to let it grip the tube a tad better. Just stick a flat bladed screwdriver in the "slot" while clamping the end of it against the longer side. Twist the screwdriver in the slot to bow it out a tad. Woiks poifick.
Colin