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Help! This damn car is giving me rage and making me depressed!!

My wife's 2001 Civic EX has developed a damn oil leak that I can't seem to figure out or solve for the life of me. Car has 181k miles or so.

Just a week ago I had some work done on it, as there was an oil leak from the driver's side of the motor. Had timing belt, water pump, drive belt, valve cover gasket, etc.. Done. The leak on the driver's side was apparently a leaking cam seal. Mechanic replaced that while he was in there. Also replaced the cam plug on the passenger side (that stupid little black plug), as the guy called and said he thought that was leaking a bit too. It was cheap, so I was cool with it.

Now there's a leak I can't seem to track down/figure out even though I think I know what it is. My wife took the car to a family friend that's a mechanic, and he said it looked like it was the V-TEC solenoid gasket. Fine. I went to Honda, got a new gasket after spending $25 on the damn thing, and replaced it myself (I'm fairly handy, but don't like/don't have the tools for things like timing belt changes and whatnot). The oil is leaking down the back of the motor where the engine and trans meet, and also down the front where they meet. It's a fairly significant amount, too. So we went to another mechanic (the father of my wife's son), and he took it all apart again, and tightened it all back up, and we ran the engine for about 15 minutes. No oil leak then. But when we got back home (fairly decent drive, about 30-40 miles), there it was again. Oil all down the front and back again.

So could it still be this damn VTEC solenoid gasket? It's the one that goes between the head and solenoid body. Not the little triangular one up top. That one shows no signs of leaking.

HELP me before I go crazy and drive this damn car into a brick wall!!

 
Rep Power: 233

Could be that or a bad headgasket.

 
Rep Power: 517

Just an FYI about the VTEC valve....There is another seal between the upper (elect. solenoid winding held on with 3 bolts) and lower section (casting) that doesn't appear to be available separately, you would have to buy the entire valve. Also it has the oil pressure switch, and there is always the possibility of an installation error from your work.


There are many other possible places for oil leaks to originate on the engine too.


A thorough cleaning, then inspect to make sure everything is dry and oil free....Then use a white powder for leak tracing, like a cheap baby powder. Cover everything in powder, then any fresh oil should be real easy to see after it starts leaking. Drive in real short lengths, like a couple blocks at a time.
You want to catch and locate the leak when it first starts, because you will not find the source in the middle of a huge mess after driving 50 miles.


HTH

 
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Wouldn't a headgasket leaking a ton of oil either leak oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil?? There's no sign of either.

 
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I know which part you're talking about with the solenoid. The upper, smaller gasket is not leaking.

I can see exactly where the oil is leaking, but I can't pinpoint exactly where its coming from. I installed it twice, and a mechanic friend took it all apart and reinstalled it and it didn't seem to leak till we hit the highway.

 
Rep Power: 517

Nope.
A head gasket seals many different areas, and can fail in any of several different ways, to almost any degree of severity.

 
Rep Power: 252

You can be leaking exhaust gas into the coolant.. Only way to check that is with a combustion tester.

 
Rep Power: 312

Clean the oil up as best as you can from the engine bay. Idle the car but shoot the revs up here by hand and try to see where the oil is coming from. If it's higher up on the engine you should be able to see it using this method. If it's the head gasket it may be trickier to see.

 
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I've done this several times, and it seems as though it's coming from the VTEC solenoid body, but it's hard as hell to tell. Such little space in there to be able to see.

When we pulled the solenoid, oil ran down the front and back just like it does when the car is running with the solenoid on.

But I replaced the gasket on there with a brand new one from Honda. And myself and another person even took it all off, and put it back on again (the other person is a mechanic by trade) and it still seems to be doing the same thing

 
Rep Power: 517

Clean and dry.
Inspection mirrors and a bright flashlight.
Powder it up.
Rev it up a couple times.
Lookie for the start of the leak.

 
Rep Power: 312

Yea the revving is important. If you said it happens at highway speeds you may have to rev it up to just over 3000 before it starts to show up.

 
Rep Power: 233

Stupid question: Did you take the intake resonator off? I can see every part of that area when the resonator is out of the way.

 
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Yeah, I did. Oil is getting all over the bottom of the resonator too.

 
Rep Power: 233

Maybe you're looking too hard at the gaskets, maybe it's the casing itself. Throwin up shots in the dark right now. lol

 
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Hmm. I didn't notice anything when I inspected the body after pulling it off.

Anyone in dfw Texas that wants to help?

 
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I'm so at a loss here.

Pulled off the resonator and stuff, got the car up to temp. Gave it a couple 3k Revs and nothing. Sat in the car and held the gas around 3k with some revs up to 4k. Nothing.

Closed the hood, went less than a quarter mile and came back, and oil down the front and back. Still couldn't pinpoint ****. Gad the wife come out and take it slowly up to 3k. Took a bright light and couldn't see oil from anywhere. Had her take it up to 4k and hold it. Still couldn't see anything.

I have no f'ing idea. Putting my fingers as best as I could around the vtec solenoid I found oil but it was way hot in there and hard to pinpoint if it was from that.

Should I pull the damn solenoid and use some hondabond or ultra grey around it?

I'm so lost

I'm putting about a quart or so a day (she drives 60+ miles a day all highway)

I'm so damn frustrated right now.

 
Rep Power: 517

No, do NOT use any sort of sealant. Risk of plugging up teensy passages in the valvetrain and NEVER being right again.
You just can't believe the problems this can cause, how long it takes to figure out what happened when someone won't admit what they did, or the price that was charged to tear down the head and valvetrain and correct their mistake!!!

The rubber seal on the VTEC valve is fine for its job and works on every other engine just fine. (I'm sort of betting that the rubber seal has been pinched or mashed during one of the R+R sessions.)

You may just need a new valve and gasket. IDK, can't tell from here.

If it will only show a leak after DRIVING at 4k+, then try raising the front wheels off the ground, repeat the leak test IN FIRST GEAR with the wheels spinning and the engine over 4000 RPM. This should allow the VTEC valve to activate, since the PCM needs to see a road speed before allowing it to activate. Or you could use jumper wires to activate it manually if you know what you are doing.

At least you have it narrowed down to the VTEC system and its passages so far.

Something else I ran into within the last week or two, and IDK if this can apply to your engine, but we did a VTEC gasket on a 03-07 style Accord the other day, we discovered there is more than one style of VTEC valve gasket possible for that (someone ordered the wrong one). I wonder if the same could be possible for yours? Have you double checked your part numbers to make sure it is really for your car?

 
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Gasket has never been pinched or smashed. It's a pretty thick gasket, and I didn't notice anything unusual during R&R.

When I bought the gasket, I went directly to the honda dealership to get it. I didn't double check part numbers, but good idea. I'll have to dig out the paperwork and do that. It seems like it could only be one type though. I mean the gasket fits down into grooves on the solenoid body, and has small tabs to hold it in place during install.

 
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Alright guys. I'm 95% sure it's the vtec solenoid.

It won't leak oil unless you actually drive the car. After driving and checking it out, I can feel fresh oil at the bottom of the solenoid and that big coolant pipe right there. I believe its dripping or running onto that pipe and dripping down onto the transmission.

The gasket is brand new. What the hell should I do???

 
Rep Power: 312

Take it apart and clean where the gasket sits.. make sure there is nothing there.

 
Rep Power: 511

if it's the driver side of the motor, I don't think it'd be the VTEC solenoid.. That thing is on the back passenger side of the motor.. Then again, I skimmed through the thread trying to extract pertinent information. I could have missed something.

I'ma throw this one out there because I didn't see it mentioned. I had a BAD oil leak a little while ago on my car as well.. I left a puddle of oil under my car when I parked at school, and it was from the driver side as well. I randomly replaced the crank seal and my cam seal, but that didn't fix it. Took it apart again and noticed a small tear in my valve cover gasket. That thing was fairly new, too. Replaced that, haven't had a problem since.

TL;DR
Check your valve cover gasket. Replace if necessary. Don't forget to put a dab of RTV on the sharp corners

 
Rep Power: 0

I've removed and cleaned everything up twice now.

The leak is on the passenger side, not drivers side.

 
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No one?

 
Rep Power: 517

But did you FIX anything?
Removing and reinstalling is not repairing or replacing.
Cleaning is not fixing.



You are positive the gasket wasn't damaged during any of the R&R sessions?
Sooooo, replace the entire VTEC valve? Another gasket?
IDK.

Could it be anything else?
How about the plug where the distributor would go?
We can't see what is leaking on YOUR car.

You have to make the decision here.
Or let someone else do it.

#9 look like your VTEC valve?



http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/...EAD+%28VTEC%29


HTH

 
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Everyone keeps saying to make sure all the mating surfaces are clean, which I.made sure to do very thoroughly each time.

This is my first Honda, so I have no idea where the distributor is on the older Honda's.

I'm sure the gasket wasnt damaged.

Yes, that picture is similar to my wife's car. Its an 01 civic with the d17.

 
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I've been meaning to update this thread, was just waiting on a few drives to make sure I was successful.

Seems as though I've fixed the problem. Once again, I pulled off the vtec solenoid. Cleaned all the oil off the engine and solenoid, and checked very well for cracks. Nothing.

So I pulled the actual solenoid off the valve body, and what do you know? The gasket has a crack completely through it. Seemed like a hard plastic gasket, rather than a rubber gasket. I thought that was weird.

Anyways, the crack in the gasket was along the side of the solenoid that would be up against the head. So the oil seemed to be leaking out of there, and then down the side, making it look like the oil was leaking from the valve where it meets the head.

I got some permatex ultra grey, and put nice thin coats on both sides of the gasket, and filled in the crack as best as i could, and a thin coat on the thin ring of metal where the valve body and solenoid meet.

Went out of town after the fix. When I came back, it had been 24 hours since the gasket was set. So I took it for a decent, spirited drive. Came back home, pulled off the intake baffle and pipe, and checked. No oil at all from where it was leaking before.

Wife has been driving it all week with no leakage. So I guess the ultra grey took care of it