.::Rezerwa 126p::.

[dagleykd]

Hello everyone! It's been a long time since I posted here! I had posted here years ago about importing a FIAT 126 to Canada and have finally been able to do that! My little 1987 Corfu white Maluch arrived in January, it was exported from Italy

I just finished getting a lot of little issues sorted out and it's been doing great...but now it has a very bad oil leak.

It's always had a small oil leak since I got it, but in the last two drives that I've used it, that leak has gotten significantly worse.

I can't seem to figure out where it's coming from, but the distributor, oil pressure light switch and the dipstick (which is brand new) are all bone dry around them.

There's a lot of oil on the underside of the oil pan and some noticeable drops on the bottom of the flywheel cover, but no oil that seems like it's coming from INSIDE the flywheel cover.

For reference, I had driven it 25mins to work yesterday as it was a nice day and a Friday. Topped it up with fresh oil to about 3/4 on the dipstick (it was hard to read but it was somewhere around there) went to work, was at work for about 8 hours. When I came out from work there was a noticeable amount of oil under the engine. I checked the dipstick and it was showing about 2/3 full. On the way home I had to go run an errand so I drove it for another 15, stopped for about 10 minutes, drove it for about 6 more minutes and then was at another place for about an hour.

When I came back out from that place there was also a noticeable amount of oil under the car but obviously nowhere is near as much as when it had been at work for 8 hours in the parking lot.

By the time I got it back to the storage unit after another 20 minute drive the dipstick was showing maybe a tiny bit over half.

I put a piece of paper towel under the car when I parked it and when I checked on it this morning most of the oil drops were under the oil pan with another one under the flywheel cover and another one at the lowest point of the gearbox casting as if it had run down from higher up somewhere.

I checked the breather tube from the rocker cover and I don't seem to see any significant oil there so I don't think there's a sudden amount of blowby bringing oil into the engine bay that way.

There is a noticeable film of oil all around the engine bay but mostly on the inside of the engine lid (to the point where I can see that it has been coming out of the vents to the outside of the car).

There's no oil around the rear pulleys or the centrifugal filter, so I don't think that's what's leaking and flinging oil as the belt is also dry and clean. That would rule out the centrifugal filter gasket and the main seal behind the pulley there?

What could be causing this leak? Like I said, the rear centrifugal filter and pulley is bone dry as is the brand new dipstick, the oil pressure switch and the distributor...so I can't think that it's leaking from any of those? Is this probably a rear main seal leak where it meets the gearbox? Or could this be a pushrod tube seal?

It's just so strange because the largest amount of oil is the drips under the car and the flywheel cover and oil pan being covered with oil....but yet there is that noticeable film of oil up in the engine bay as well.

It could just be an oil pan gasket, but would that splash oil all the way up into the engine bay...?

Would love anyone's thoughts or suggestions or guesses! I'd already ordered a whole bunch of spare parts when I imported it so I'm just curious if it's something that I would already have the parts for to repair, but I'd also like to have a better idea of what it could be so I could make suggestions to the garage when they go to look into the leak.

Thanks for any suggestions or help!

I will try and upload a bunch of pictures in a separate post - the worst of the puddles seems to be on the left side under the oil pan.

[dagleykd]

I think this is the easiest way to share the images - here is a folder with them all on my Google Drive!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TxmJ887xSWrW0zxkEuILXqFC8Sukkx8J?usp=sharing