Thread: 300Tdi Rear Main Oil leak.

Originally Posted by loanrangie

I'll add my 2c worth, i vaguely remember something about the 300tdi rear main seals where the bolt holes aren't centered correctly and need to be drilled out slightly for the seal to center itself on the shaft .
Possibly it was Justin Cooper that mentioned this ?

Interesting, however I don't see how this would only develop after 20k kms on the new seal, although you never know with Land Rovers.

I have devised a new method of oil capture for the time being, however she's leaking a bit more than I anticipated and overflowed the catch can (330ml) in one day, only 50kms of city driving done. I reckon it lost more like 500ml as well which means 100ml per 10km in the city. Not good at all.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

dull metal with a cross hatch is good.

anything else is less optimal.

Endoscope was a few mm too big to fit unfortunately. Still performed sludge flush and the Italian tune. Dumping and changing oil tonight and will do a test drive to see if she's still leaking. I'm not too hopeful this has actually fixed the problem but we will see. In the case it hasn't, my understanding is that the oil is essentially being pushed out of the seal by the excessive pressure in the crankcase which has blown by the cylinder rings. With that in mind, would this pressure therefore be alleviated if you removed the oil dipstick? (Considering it goes right into the sump and therefore the area which is excessively pressurised).

If so, in the case that the engine is still leaking oil, if I remove the dipstick and the oil leak persists, does this then indicate that the problem is in fact not crankcase pressure and instead just a catastrophic failure of the rear main seal?

Cheers.