Does crankcase ventilation affect 83 240D oil leakage through my rear seal?
I have a small puddle where I have been parking the car. When I rebuilt the engine, I took the bottom housing that mates to the bottom of the block(the one that the oil pan mounts to...) from an earlier engine, becuase it was cleaner.
SOMEHOW I was dumb and didn't notice that mine had a hole for the Crankcase ventilation line/tube that runs from the Crankcase hosuing up about 1 foot into the Black foam covered cylindrical tank that feeds into the intake manifold.
I am assuming that this is the real reason my rear oil seal is leaking. As soon as the weather gets warmer, I was thinking of removing my pan and drilling through the bottom Crankcase housing and installing a Crankcase breather line--will this work?

That hole is probably an oil drain, not a crankase ventilation hole. If you don't have an oil drain for the separator in the air filter, you are either dripping the oil on the road or dumping it down the intake.

The crankcase will vent quite nicely through the chain case on the front of the engine -- it's not exactly constricted there....

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

Meanwhile what kinda breather apparatus do you have between the valve cover and intake? I've got an early model '79 240D thats just got straight rubber hose from valve cover to intake manifold with no oil separator and nothing fancy.