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Getting some oil seepage from the headgasket area. Oil doesn’t drip from motor, so it’s not much seepage. Do I wait for it to get worse or do I suck it up and replace it now?
Do I take this as an opportunity to replace more of the top or bottom of this 160k motor? PO said that it dynoed fine last year. I want to do this smart such that I don’t end up regretting “gee, I wish I’d done that when I had the motor open”.
First, are you positive it’s the head gasket? Is it leaking at the front of the engine, maybe on the passenger side? It may be the cam seal and/or the o-ring seal there.
My favorite shop and I looked at it really hard last night. It was up on a rack. I’m not sure of anything but death and taxes, but it sure looked to me like “wetness” was evenly distributed on the passenger side block immediately below the head gasket. It did seem a little worse near the front of the motor. We did not look at the driver’s side. Is it plausible that a leak at the cam seal would result in that pattern of oil wetness? If so, how might I rule one or another out with certainty?
If its just seeping, I would leave it alone. If you want to further investigate it, clean up the current mess with rags and watch it redevelop. Its highly unlikely that it is the head gasket itself leaking oil out.
Clean it really, really well. Run it. Check where the leaks came from. Valve cover gasket leaking down, camseals, etc. It’s sometimes hard to verify being that the oil will run/drip and be deceiving as to where it came from.
Clean it really well, and put some oil leak detector dye in it. Drive it for about a day or two, then put it on the rack again, and use an ultraviolet light to trace the leak.