Intermittent oil leak front side

[TransitMies1]

I have a Transit Mk6 manufactured in 2012, registered in 2013. !40 hp Puma diesel, FWD.

It has a persistent, yet intermittent oil leak. Oil covers the fron side of the engine from the air intake manifold down, on top of the alternator, oil pump.... The leak seems to happen during a longer drive, the stops. I have washed the engine and after that it may stay clean for weeks. I have had the intake manifold seal changed to new, but the leak re-emerged. The engine has been partly rebuilt, the bottom half has about 65000km on it, the rest is older, some of it dating back to original engine and 396000 kms. There is some breathing from the oil cap and dipstick when removed and on idle. I checked the breathing tube going into the air intake tube and some breathing was happening fromfrom there too.

Engine oil gets all black and dirty looking fast, after a few thousand kms.

I am suspecting injector seals, blocked EGR/breathing system, or jammed piston rings. What is wondering is that the leak happens randomly but then it leaks quite bit.

Any ideas or experiences about such a problem?

[loot]

Can you confirm the year of the van because the mk6 finished in 2006

[TransitMies1]

It is 2012 manufactured.

[loot]

It'll be mk7 euro 5 then
Only intermittent thing like that I can think of may be dpf related maybe the vaporiser fuel pump?
Can you confirm if it is engine oil or gear oil or other that is leaking?
I may be talking rubbish but usually oil leaks are fairly consistent

[TransitMies1]

The leak is definately engine oil. It has happened maybe 5 times in some 20000 km. Usually a big surprise after a longer trip- Damn annoying as it is so tough to catch and it already destroyed one alternator.

[TransitMies1]

Finally we found out the problem. Two out of four injector seals were leaking. The shop had reused old seals when they overhauled the engine. One could see the double imprints on the seal rings. This caused the engine to breath heavily and pressure to build up so that it leaked from the weakest points.

With new seals no breathing (oil cap can be opened, no fumes), no leaks, all fine.

[TransitMies1]

Just an update of what happened just recently. I suspect it the aftermath of the injector seal leakage causing oil to run through the engine and soot and oil residue buildups.

After a 2 month break from using the van at all, it had big problems staring up, It did however start up but ran roughly for some 20 secs before kicking into normal sounding idle. But after some higher rpm it went into limp mode and OBD showed P2598 code.

Make it short, the problem is turbo van control sticking. It can be found by having someone revving the engine and observing if the boost rod moves easily or at all. Mine perhaps tried a bit but did not move. I had to take out the locking spring from the turbo boost actuator to the turbo and make the rod lever move by hand. After a few tries it broke loose. Of course I checked that the actuator moves too.

So just a hint if you run into similar issue. Before ordering parts check this!

Next I will buy turbo cleaner and try to avoid having to take off the turbo for manual cleaning.