I'll admit the car was way overdue for an alignment. As in, last one was done three or four years ago. Yeah, late. Anyway, since I got two new tires on the car, I figured I'd get it done (and like I said, it REALLY needed it anyway).

Good news: despite being way off, the alignment was all it needed. Nothing else wrong with the front end. Thank God, because I pretty much had it rebuilt four years ago!

Bad news: I have an oil leak (well, I knew THAT...) and in the mechanic's words, "it's made your cross damper (I think that's what he called it) all sloppy."

So...where do I start looking for the source of the oil leak?

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1983 240D, 272K+ miles (odo broke)

the engine

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1991 300D

The gasket between the oil filter housing and block.....may be a rear main seal but chances are its this gasket.....mine is also covered in oil.....but its not what made it sloppy.....35 years of use is what did it.....

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A gallon of Purple and a pressure washer is a good place to start.
Hard to find a leak when everything is covered in oil.

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1985 300D 198K sold
1982 300D 202K
1989 300E 125K
1992 940T

"If you dont have time to do it safely, you dont have time to do it"

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

Quite often it is the valve cover gasket that gets re-used and re-used and re-used

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

"cross damper"? Steering damper maybe? If so, that's in front.

Check the front crank seal. With the engine running, crawl under the front and with a flash light observe the bottom of the spinning pulley, anything coming out?

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83 SD

84 CD

The valve gasket was replaced when I had my valves adjusted this previous winter. There's also quite a bit of blowby, if that helps at all.

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1983 240D, 272K+ miles (odo broke)

OK OK, I know your talking about me....stop it

I have reused mine so many times because ever month I was redoing the valve adjustment...

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