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Curious if anyone has advice on this situation... Here's the story:
My son just bought the car a couple of weeks ago. It had signs of significant oil leaking at the oil pan and timing belt cover that we discovered after purchasing. (Shame on us). We did a lot of service on the vehicle, all per the honda service manual specifications, but we have an even bigger leak now, coming from the same area.
We did a full timing belt service to inspect where the leak was coming from. Upon inspection, it appeared the leak was coming from the oil pump, near the back of the engine block, so we went in to replace the oil pump o-ring that sits in between the oil pump and the block.
We torqued the 5 oil pump bolts to spec (Honda service manual), and used Hondabond RTV as suggested by the Honda service manual between the oil pump and the block, ensuring that we carefully cleaned off all prior RTV from the mating surfaces.
While doing this service, we ran into a couple of problems:
Since we had already replaced the crankshaft seal, when reinstalling the oil pump, we did not notice that the oil pump was not aligned with the flat sides of the crankshaft, and as we screwed it down, we stripped out the threads in one of the 5 oil pump fastener holes. the one on the bottom right, circled in red in the attached picture. We fixed this using a helicoil kit to match the original bolt (Heli-Coil Thread Inserts 5546-6). This worked well and the bolt held the torque specs required by the service manual.
We ended up attempting to install the oil pump numerous times, given the stripped bolt, each time removing the hondabond RTV and re-applying. The service manual states that you should put hondabond into the threads on the bolt holes. We think that over the several times of installing the pump, we got too much hondabond in the whole circled in blue in the diagram, that when we torqued the bolt down to the specified torque, a little chip of the aluminum engine block at the back of where the bolt hole is, broke off of the engine. We JB Welded this chip back in place. Multiple layers of JB weld. As we thought about it, we didn't think oil could get in to this bolt hole, but I suppose it is possible, though this does not appear to be where the oil is coming from.
While doing the timing belt we replaced the following items:
Camshaft seal (didn't appear to be leaking)
Crankshaft seal (didn't appear to be leaking)
Water pump and water pump o-ring (Aisin, honda OEM)
Auto-tensioner, spring and tensioner bolt.
Timing belt, steering pump belt, alternator/AC belt
Lower timing belt cover
Oil pump o-ring
oil pan gasket
valve cover gasket and seals
We also put in new coilovers, a new clutch, clutch plate, flywheel, throw-out bearing, rear main seal, axle seals, input shaft bearing (inside the transmission)
How many miles are on the vehicle? Where is the oil pooling? At the bottom of the timing cover?
When you removed the oil pump did you inspect the front of the crank for smoothness? I’ve heard of old crank seals being on the motor for so long that they etch a small line on where the seal mated with the crank and when a new seal is installed a leak is formed since the new seal doesn’t give an oil tight environment.
218k on the car, but its in sweet condition otherwise.
Dripping from the lower TB cover, its all over the subframe and oil pan.
Didn't inspect the crank for smoothness intentionally, but definitely spent some time around the crank, and didn't notice any issues with it. The crankshaft seal that was there was in good condition, and didn't seam to have any leak. I think the original leak was coming from the o ring between the oil pump and the block.
The problem I am faced with now, is do I pay honda to get in and do a TB job just to find out where the problem is, with the likely chance they tell the block is toast and I need a new one. Or, do I just bite the bullet and swap the block (maybe K swap), now.
Honda wants $1,600 to put the oil pump back on again, and replace all the seals and stuff I just replaced. $176 in parts, $1,400 for labor. In the report, I noticed they included a bottle of Honda Ultra FLG sealant, part number 08718-0009, which makes me think perhaps we used the wrong sealant between the oil pump and the block? We used hondabond...
Could your JB Weld job be preventing the oil pump from seating correctly? Is it possible the rubber O ring between the pump and block was damaged or isn't seated correctly?
Turns out the o-ring in between the oil pump and the block slipped while securing things and got pinched, just as you suspected. Don't even want to tell you how much that cost to have the dealership fix...
Turns out the o-ring in between the oil pump and the block slipped while securing things and got pinched, just as you suspected. Don't even want to tell you how much that cost to have the dealership fix...
Yes, dealerships are expensive but at least you should be getting quality work. That's more than you can say about almost all other general mechanic shops.
