Oil leak from Distributor weep hole

[blancojp]

Hello All!
I though I put this out and see what other solution can be found.

I have a '72 Ascona 1900 I purchased from Oldopelguy and the engine runs quite well, it pulls nicely and does not show any signs of a problem at idle. When you drive around and the engine gets to operating temperature, oil comes out the weep hole on the distributor. All cylinders have over 140Psi compression and I recently changed the head gasket just in case. The head itself was inspected when removed, as well as all four piston tops and I found a bit of carbon but no damage anywhere. The only thing that is different is the car came with a PH8A oil filter and I replaced that with the correct Opel unit.

I have checked the engine several times and searched through everything that I could find in the archives with no luck.

Any ideas??????????????

[hrcollinsjr]

Originally Posted by blancojp ... oil comes out the weep hole on the distributor. Any ideas??????????????

Juan, get one of your many extra distributors. Now with it in hand, look into the hole in the distributor body below the mounting surface, there is only one hole IIRC and it should be obvious. Can you see a fiber type pad inside there? There should be one. Bet your leaky distributor is missing this. I had this problem MANY years ago and swapped in another distributor and this was the only difference I could detect. Regardless the problem went away after the swap.

HTH,
Harold

[AZManta]

Originally Posted by blancojp Hello All! I though I put this out and see what other solution can be found. I have a '72 Ascona 1900 I purchased from Oldopelguy and the engine runs quite well, it pulls nicely and does not show any signs of a problem at idle. When you drive around and the engine gets to operating temperature, oil comes out the weep hole on the distributor. All cylinders have over 140Psi compression and I recently changed the head gasket just in case. The head itself was inspected when removed, as well as all four piston tops and I found a bit of carbon but no damage anywhere. The only thing that is different is the car came with a PH8A oil filter and I replaced that with the correct Opel unit. I have checked the engine several times and searched through everything that I could find in the archives with no luck. Any ideas??????????????

Make sure your PCV system is working properly.

[blancojp]

Originally Posted by hrcollinsjr Juan, get one of your many extra distributors. Now with it in hand, look into the hole in the distributor body below the mounting surface, there is only one hole IIRC and it should be obvious. Can you see a fiber type pad inside there? There should be one. Bet your leaky distributor is missing this. I had this problem MANY years ago and swapped in another distributor and this was the only difference I could detect. Regardless the problem went away after the swap. HTH, Harold

The leak is comming from the two small holes at the upper base where the cap is mounted. Perhaps there is a shaft seal missing??

[hrcollinsjr]

Originally Posted by blancojp The leak is comming from the two small holes at the upper base where the cap is mounted. Perhaps there is a shaft seal missing??

I believe oil climbs the shaft and the fiber bushing or whatever you want to call it is enough to keep the oil from going past or in large enough quantities to drip from the weep holes you are talking about.

Look in the single hole in the housing below the mounting surface and you should be able to see if the fiber bushing is there or not.

Harold

[blancojp]

Originally Posted by hrcollinsjr I believe oil climbs the shaft and the fiber bushing or whatever you want to call it is enough to keep the oil from going past or in large enough quantities to drip from the weep holes you are talking about. Look in the single hole in the housing below the mounting surface and you should be able to see if the fiber bushing is there or not. Harold

Well Harold, we were both right!

The distributor has an oil shaft seal which lubricates but does not allow the oil to pass over to the points area. The shaft seal can be seen through the hole under the mounting lip. If you turn the shaft and see it turn, your seal is gone. I took the distributor out and a river of oil came out through this hole.

This is not the distributor the car came with, I purchased this distributor from another member and added the Petronix components to it. When it came time to start the car, I replaced the distributor and the deed was done. The distributor was totally worn out inside and was barely good enough for parts.

Thanks all for your help and specially Harold!

[wrench459]

More details guys.
ie what is the seal/wick made of? I don't like the term seal only because the upper bushing needs some lube. Then theres the spiral groove in the upper shaft area to help control the oil and pump it back down to the drain hole.

[opelspyder]

Well, I will chime in here for the materials and definition of parts. The wick or felt is like the same material used by manufactures to lube points like Bluestreak. Not sure where you can get it, but it is pretty tough stuff, as it last a lifetime. The reverse thread you speak of is actually a scientific theory of a turbulant force that does help keep oil from bypassing that shaft. British cars in the 50-60s didn't have rear main seals, they had this reverse thread machined in them. But anyone who has owned a British car, know once the bearings gained any tolerance, they leak. This thread is called an Archemedes Thread. As this was his theory.
Keith

[blancojp]

Originally Posted by opelspyder Well, I will chime in here for the materials and definition of parts. The wick or felt is like the same material used by manufactures to lube points like Bluestreak. Not sure where you can get it, but it is pretty tough stuff, as it last a lifetime. The reverse thread you speak of is actually a scientific theory of a turbulant force that does help keep oil from bypassing that shaft. British cars in the 50-60s didn't have rear main seals, they had this reverse thread machined in them. But anyone who has owned a British car, know once the bearings gained any tolerance, they leak. This thread is called an Archemedes Thread. As this was his theory. Keith

Originally Posted by wrench459 More details guys. ie what is the seal/wick made of? I don't like the term seal only because the upper bushing needs some lube. Then theres the spiral groove in the upper shaft area to help control the oil and pump it back down to the drain hole.

Guys, I hate to be Johnny Raincloud here but all I want is my distributor to operate properly, not a partial science lesson.

Besides you are both only partially correct:

a) the seal is what makes the spiral work due to the center locking spring. If you look at the exploded view, you will clearly see what I mean.

b) it is not called the "Archemedes Thread", it is called the "Archimedes Screw" and originally was the earlier Greek fluid pumps developed.


I repaired my distributor by placing a call to a friend who works on VW engines. The Opel distributor shares mechanicals with the VW Bosch 009 therefore some of the parts are interchangeable. Harold gave me the idea and I got all of the part numbers I needed from the VW tech. I took the leaky unit appart and saw the problem at first hand. A trip to the local parts place took care of the parts and hence the problem.

[opelspyder]

I don't know what you mean by seal with spring. I have been into a couple distributors, and never recall seeing a rubber seal of any kind especially with a spring. The bottom has a bronze bushing in which the Archimedes screw rides in. Then there is a hard flat sleeve curled inside the housing. Took one out one time and was a pain to get back in, but as far as an actual seal-I have never seen one...and the factory service manual doesn't show in great detail the contents of the housing itself. So where is this seal???
Keith

[RallyBob]

Keith, I'm with you on this one. I've torn down hundreds of Opel distributors of the years to recurve them. I've never seen a seal anywhere. I've seen the felt 'pad' between the upper and lower bushings on the distributor housing (on non-rebuilt distributors only, as the rebuilders do NOT ever replace this part). But that's it.

However it's entirely possible that a rebuilder has added a seal that is compatible (like from a VW or Pinto, or whatever else runs a Bosch distributor). And if it's a large regional rebuilder, then it's also entirely possible to have seen many distributors set up that way over the years.

[blancojp]

The felt pad between the bearings is replaced on the Bosch 009 distributors with a seal. The Opel distributor is very close to the 009 distributor so I rebuilt the unit using 009 parts. In essence, the felt pad is the seal that not only lubricate the bearings but also does not allow oil to exit further up. If the felt pad is not there, you have the oil leak I experienced.

The leak went away when I installed the 009 shaft seal in place of the worn out felt pad. How many people out there throw out distributors (or sell them on Ebay as working items) due to the leak problem, now they have a workable solution.

But if you look at the 009 manual exploded view, the seal and other replaceable components are listed individually.

[73Manta72gt]

Any good sources for bosch distributor parts?

[blancojp]

Originally Posted by 73Manta72gt Any good sources for bosch distributor parts?

Any VW bug store can help you in detail.

[wrench459]

Originally Posted by blancojp The leak went away when I installed the 009 shaft seal in place of the worn out felt pad. How many people out there throw out distributors (or sell them on Ebay as working items) due to the leak problem, now they have a workable solution. But if you look at the 009 manual exploded view, the seal and other replaceable components are listed individually.

Ok sounds good.
One question that bugs me is the seal. Are we talking about a standard lip seal?