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[jjleonard]

After watching the V6 Cambelt change DVD twice today (slow day at work), I thought I'd go and familiarise myself with the underbonnet workings of my mig.

DISCLAIMER: I have only light experience of mechanical work (electrical and plumbing round the house). I have never worked on a car before. That said, I'm happy to work on it, albeit slowly and with careful reference to guides (such as the ones on here).

Anyway... when having a good look down both sides of the engine, I noticed oil leaks! I rolled the car back and had a look on the ground, and saw two 5p sized drops (i've taken the car out twice on short runs today, otherwise it hasn't moved).

I stuck a camera down the sides and took some photos:

Passenger side (toward the rear of the engine, you can see the oil filler cap in the top of the pic)



Passenger side rear again, a bit clearer



Drivers side toward the rear - note the fuel lines in the top right of the picture!



Drivers side - as the photo above but rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise (so I could try to get a better picture).



I am currently without tools, but I'm going to WIM on Saturday afternoon so I can have a closer look underneath then - to see the extent of the leak from underneath. I'm guessing that i'm going to have to change the cam cover gaskets at some point soon, although I'm sure the breathers could do with being cleaned first.

So - could a newbie, in your opinion, clean the breathers in half a day (say sunday morning?) - I'll have to go out and buy tools, dammit, but I was going to do that anyway (just not quite so soon!)

I was figuring that cleaning the breathers and doing an oil change would relieve enough pressure from the system to allow me some 'breathing space' to get round to doing the gaskets. I know that's not a trivial job so I need to get my confidence up first.

I'm not sufficiently loaded enough to get someone else to do it.  :-/

All opinions welcome!

[Techno]

Hi yes from the look of it you've got classic symptoms of leaking cam covers   and yes I'd say it's very possible that you can clean the breather system in half a day.

Now at the risk of opening up allsorts from my experience the cam covers will leak regardless of how clean the breather system is of course a blocked or restricted system WILL accelerate the leaking.  The covers are fitted with a synthetic rubber gasket which over time will with all the heating/cooling, expansion/contraction of the gasket it will harden and in turn allow oil to weep.

When mine leaked the breathers were fine but the gaskets were buggered almost rock hard in places, my tip is do both.

[ngrainqey]

cleaning the breathers out isnt too bad until you get to cleaning out the breather unit on the back of the drivers side bank of cylinders, what i found was that ignition leads kept getting in the way and when i did mine i had the cam cover off to get my whole hand/arm in sort of thing and it was still a pain trying to clear the pin sized hole (i found a drill to be the best at removing the crud out of the large breather pipe)

[jjleonard]

Oh gawd. Darn it.

Looks like I'm doing the breathers and an oil change this weekend, and the gaskets next weekend...  

[serek]

you need new cam covers gaskets from Vx, also if you wont to come round my place I can give hand , have all tools what need for that job
any time but best on sunday morning

[ngrainqey]

like serek says,
use the proper vx ones (or the ones in the shop on here-as they're proper vx ones)
aftermarket oe spec ones off ebay are rubbish so will need doing again

[jjleonard]

you need new cam covers gaskets from Vx, also if you wont to come round my place I can give hand , have all tools what need for that job
any time but best on sunday morning

Thanks Serek, you're a gentleman. I'll get in touch once I've got the gasket kit and I'm ready to do the work!  

[jjleonard]

cleaning the breathers out isnt too bad until you get to cleaning out the breather unit on the back of the drivers side bank of cylinders, what i found was that ignition leads kept getting in the way and when i did mine i had the cam cover off to get my whole hand/arm in sort of thing and it was still a pain trying to clear the pin sized hole (i found a drill to be the best at removing the crud out of the large breather pipe)

How did you get to the breather unit - can it be removed or should you try to clean it in situ? I've had a look at the engine bay and the 'cleaning the breathers' tutorial, and I'm not sure!

[Martin_1962]

Not too bad a job, use genuine and it is quite likely just due to hardening of the gasket

[Richard A]

Do the 'cam cover gaskets' first if you are going to do them, only use Vauxhall bits and the correct sealer, at the same time clean the breathers and to stop the 'carb cleaner' doing any long term damage finish of the day with an oil and filter change.  
regards
richard a

[jjleonard]

thanks all for your help - just dropped £150 on tools and I'll spend some time this weekend investigating the car. (The girlfriend wants me to paint the upstairs, rather than spend quality time under the bonnet!

[ngrainqey]

cleaning the breathers out isnt too bad until you get to cleaning out the breather unit on the back of the drivers side bank of cylinders, what i found was that ignition leads kept getting in the way and when i did mine i had the cam cover off to get my whole hand/arm in sort of thing and it was still a pain trying to clear the pin sized hole (i found a drill to be the best at removing the crud out of the large breather pipe)

How did you get to the breather unit - can it be removed or should you try to clean it in situ? I've had a look at the engine bay and the 'cleaning the breathers' tutorial, and I'm not sure!

well the thing is that cleaning the breathers is a nice side job while your swapping the camcover gaskets see...
it's ok to clean the breather body (like a rectangular box on the back of the cylinder head) with a drill and a paperclip/pin-drill in the 12mm roughly hole and the paperclip in the 1-2mm hole.

just blast the breathers ontop of the plenium with carb cleaner but make sure you take it off (the black thing thats ontop of the plenium) and blow out the airways into the top of the plenium where what looks a cylindrical thing on the bottom of the black box is if that makes sense.
also clean out the two thick pipes which are in a V-shape that go to the thicker pipe on the breather box.

hope that made sense

[jjleonard]

Got it, thanks. I'm setting myself up to do it all next weekend - start off with the removal of everything - do the cam cover gaskets first, then use the opportunity to clean the breathers whilst the covers are off and I can get to them, finishing up with re-assembly and an oil change.