Official: I did something bad in a past life :(

[dcod]

I had a bad oil leak under load from behind the bottom pulley,my mechanic fixed it with a new seal.

The guy at Rogue said it's not a difficult fix but the bottom sump requires removing, cleaning and resealing when it's put back together. The sealant (silicon) needs up to 5 hours to set before new oil is put in. I believe that's what he said, my memory ain't what it used to be.

Could it be the rings sticking in the piston grooves? Same as happens on some early 1ZZ engines.

Could be a possibility. I'll research to see if it's a known 2zz problem. Is there anything that can be done about it? An additive maybe.

[Anonymous]

It was a circular seal directly behind the pulley on mine,luckily I check my oil on a regular basis mostly do small journeys and have a piece of wooden board under the car in the garage to show up leaks so I spotted it early.

[mrzwei]

A compression test and leak down test was peformed which confirmed it's not the head gasket but there did appear to be leakage down into the crank. Apparently, this could be due to either a score in the bore   s:( s:(   or aligned gaps in the rings (this can happen as rings twist around the cylinders).

For now, it's just a case of monitoring and hope it stays as it is. I shall get the oil seal replaced at some point though.

Could it be the rings sticking in the piston grooves? Same as happens on some early 1ZZ engines.

Can you post the results of that compression test?
There are usually three rings on a piston and it is usual practice during assembly to stagger the gaps so that they don't all line up. For them to 'move' that far is doubtful.
For them to say that 'there was leakage down into the crank' suggests that they got a low reading on one cylinder. If you pull the plugs and find a colour difference on one then there may be an issue.
Don't worry because oil / water loss problems can be managed until you choose to do something about them.

[dcod]

1500 miles ago my compression test was 201,202,215,215.

This time it was 185,188,190,193.

Leak test showed 20%, 18%, 12%, 10%. The guy at Rogue said that he could only hear the air escape through the oil filler cap which means it's escaping past the rings into the crank case.

The compression test actually shows closer figures now than before. The difference in values maybe due to a different gauge (different garages).

As for spark plugs, the plug that came out of cylinder 4 was different (white). This is probably because it came out of cylinder 1 at the previous compression test but put back in 4.

[mrzwei]

If you got it done at Rouge then I'd trust exactly what they say. The compressions look ok though really.

[dcod]

It was a circular seal directly behind the pulley on mine,luckily I check my oil on a regular basis mostly do small journeys and have a piece of wooden board under the car in the garage to show up leaks so I spotted it early.

I check my oil so frequently now that any loss I see now would probably be down to the number of times I wipe oil off the  sfuck fuck sfuck ing dipstick!

[dcod]

If you got it done at Rouge then I'd trust exactly what they say. The compressions look ok though really.

That's how I feel. I'll get my local garage to change my oil in 2500mls. At the same time I'll get them to do another compression test to see the difference in values between garages and check things aren't any worse. I had new plugs put in so I'll also get them checked for colouration to see if cylinder 1 is a particular problem.

The guy at Rogue said the compression gauges have 5% tollerance. This is probably when they are new. 3 years down the line they are probably wildly inaccurate and generally used to show a difference between cylinders rather than a specific value. I doubt the gauges get calibrated every year.