TD5 engine oil leaks!

Hi all,

Been having to do some long distance drives from Surrey to Cumbria in my 2004 D2 TD5. It has 133K miles and has been well serviced, LR main dealer up to 100K.

Having bought it in January I changed the oil recently with Shell Helix 5W30 as per the spec, both oil filters were changed too. I found a problem with the centrifugal cover where the threads had been stripped (possibly by LR dealer?) and it had been glued on - I repaired this when replacing filter and O-ring. This is definitely not leaking!

Couple of weeks ago I noticed a few drips underneath of my new, clean and expensive engine oil! Read threads about the front cam cover and true enough, it was rattling around in there and leaking so that has been replaced.

Drove back from Cumbria last night and awake to find large pool of oil underneath! Its a big leak as most of the underneath is dripping with oil - transfer box is leaking too from rear oil seal into handbrake drum so I will replace oil seal and bearing - a bit of play in the handbrake drum.

Looking from underneath there just seems to be engine oil all over the block making it hard to identify the leak - any places I should start looking for common leaks? Is there a rear cam cover similar to the front?

Any help/suggestions welcome - this is becoming a very expensive way to underseal the chassis. I used to laugh at the splattered tailgate on my Series 2a after a high speed (40mph!!) run but it's not so funny with this one!

Thanks, Julian.

I had an oil leak on my Td5 back in January after an oil change.
Traced it to the cam cover gasket leaking at the back end. There's a "half-moon" seal at the back too which has been known to leak.
Left to me those would be the first places to check.
There are two versions of the cam cover gasket, one for the 10p engine and the other for the 15p lump. Check the V5 document for the exact engine type.

Could be worth checking the oil feed to the vacuum pump? See this fred

As its a 2004, yours should be a 15P engine if it's the original one.

In answer to your question, yes there is a rear cam oil seal and it's a pig to get at, a mirror on a stick!! is one way of checking it.
Also have a look at the crank oil seal, you can't see it unless you take the crank pulley off and that's a job in it's self!! but check underneath the pulley to see if oil is dripping down from behind it.

Have fun

Thanks for these. The leak seems to be higher up and some oil is dripping off the back of the alternator! My 6 month old daughter has taken to waking up at 5.30 am so am already out looking at this time on a Sunday morning!! Thanks for the ideas!

Danceable said:

Thanks for these. The leak seems to be higher up and some oil is dripping off the back of the alternator!

Click to expand...

Sounds very similar to the leak I had - Have you checked out the link in post #3?

A bit late (8 years...) on this thread
I had been having the same oil leak, which turned out to be a leak at the rear of the headgasket.
The oil had leaked out and followed down the outside of the engine all the way doen, and then it seems it got "trapped" behind the black (or ethnic ) engine back plate, and then slowly leaking out.'
It looks like the space bewteen the engine and the backplate could hold up to 80 to 100 mm
of oil after examining a 15P engine with a backplate still in place.
It can be very unnerving not knowing if it is a main oils seal or even a gearbox oil seaI wonder if this backplate was installed to prevent any oil getting in to the clutchplate ( clever....!)

For what it is worth to anyone who comes across this too.