G'day all'

I'm having a few problems, I'll start with the background. Friday night the alternator fanbelt snapped, managed to drive it 10 or so k's home. Nxt morning I got a new belt and put that on. The old belt had wrapped around everywhere, the pulleys and everything... Was a pain in the **** to get off, but got it eventually. Now after this ive notice oil spitting everywhere, and not sure where its coming from... But basically there is a fairly large amoint of oil leaking and also spitting everywhere. Now last nigh I drove to a friends house and just as I got there battery died... So I called th RAA and he charged the battery and told me the alternator wasnt charging... Which made sense. Anyway, I drove home and parked the car. Thismorning theres a big puddle of oil under the car. So yer Im in a bit of a predecament.. Im thinking its possibly a sump seal or something... But am hoping its not. can anyone steer me in the right direction?? Ahhhhh, its very frustrating haha. Well, thanks if anyone can help out here,

Matt.

Sump gasket/rocker cover gasket.

If your taking the sump off you may as well take the oil pick up off and give it a good clean out, will probably be gunked up.

OK thanks I'm thinking sump cos there doesn't seem to be much oil around the rocker cover, def not for how much has leaked. And im thinking the alternator might be a bit dodgy now cos its been splattered in oil... Gahhhh last thing I feel like doing.

Cos what im guessing happened is that the snapped belt wrapped around the crankshaft (well i know this) and has possibly dislodged the oil seal...

you snapped you alternator belt and then drove home??

do you realise that your alternator belt is the same belt that turns your water pump???

I have a feeling you have overheated your engine and blown alot of gaskets including your sump. You may be lucky and not have done any damage, but i doubt it. possibly time for a new engine.

no alternator belt runs alternator and power steering with the camshaft. Water pump belt is on the other side of the engine. Dont reckon its that. And i know the engine isnt overheated cos the temp stayed steady and there were no signs of overheating. Also, i doubt oils leaking from welch plugs or anything cos i replaced all them with brass ones a few months back when I put this engine in...

Grab a can of degreaser and try and clean off as much of the oil to try pin point where it is coming from. Depending how violently the belt came off is there any chance it could have damaged the timing cover gasket or the crank shaft oil seal?

yeah im thinking maybe 80% towards crankshaft oil seal cos the way the belt was wrapped around it, it could have dislodged the seal. Ive been degreasing it thismorning haha, its still so bad in th engine bay from the old engine haha, i should steam clean it one day... Yeah, thanks for the input so far guys, keep it coming, more opinions are great.

you snapped you alternator belt and then drove home??

do you realise that your alternator belt is the same belt that turns your water pump???

I have a feeling you have overheated your engine and blown alot of gaskets including your sump. You may be lucky and not have done any damage, but i doubt it. possibly time for a new engine.

Before you post, PLEASE have some remote idea of what you are saying as clearly you have no idea at all!!!!!

The water pump is not driven by the alt belt, it has its own belt driven off the end of the cam and not before you post that the cam is driven off the alt belt, it has a chain!!!!!

You have done your crank seal, is very common. If you are in east subs Melb you can pop over and I will give you one as I have several spares.

It is an easy change, drop off your new alt belt and your PS belt, crack the crank pully (if needed, disconnect your dist and use a breaker bar from the crank puly bolt into the steering and drive shaft to jam it, crank the engine and it will crack the bolt) pop off the pulley, lube and push in the new seal, put her all back together, make sure you do get the crank pulley tight and if poss get someone with a rattle gun to npip it up later.

Job done, no more oil leaks from your magna (well there anyway lol)

So it is possibly to get the pulley off without lowering the end of the engine?

Before you post, PLEASE have some remote idea of what you are saying as clearly you have no idea at all!!!!!

The water pump is not driven by the alt belt, it has its own belt driven off the end of the cam and not before you post that the cam is driven off the alt belt, it has a chain!!!!!

You have done your crank seal, is very common. If you are in east subs Melb you can pop over and I will give you one as I have several spares.

It is an easy change, drop off your new alt belt and your PS belt, crack the crank pully (if needed, disconnect your dist and use a breaker bar from the crank puly bolt into the steering and drive shaft to jam it, crank the engine and it will crack the bolt) pop off the pulley, lube and push in the new seal, put her all back together, make sure you do get the crank pulley tight and if poss get someone with a rattle gun to npip it up later.

Job done, no more oil leaks from your magna (well there anyway lol)

Thanka heap for that mate, HUGE help, very much appreciated. That is excellent advice. I do not have a lot of time this week so I still may need to take it in somewhere do get done while im @uni/work, about how much should I expect to pay to get it done?? Also, how much for say just the seal if i do get the time to do it myself?
And one more thing, I was looking in my haynes manual about it and they suggest removing the engine mount and lowering the engine to remove the pulley, is that def nessissary??

Once again, thanks so much for that, truly brilliant haha.
Oh, btw im in adelaide so i dont reckon Ill b able to take ya up on the offer of that seal, but thaanks heaps anyway mate!

the seals are $13 each. I got charged ~$110 to have it installed. Although I don't really trust that mechanic so he might have been screwing me a bit.

Before you post, PLEASE have some remote idea of what you are saying as clearly you have no idea at all!!!!!

The water pump is not driven by the alt belt, it has its own belt driven off the end of the cam and not before you post that the cam is driven off the alt belt, it has a chain!!!!!
You have done your crank seal, is very common. If you are in east subs Melb you can pop over and I will give you one as I have several spares.

It is an easy change, drop off your new alt belt and your PS belt, crack the crank pully (if needed, disconnect your dist and use a breaker bar from the crank puly bolt into the steering and drive shaft to jam it, crank the engine and it will crack the bolt) pop off the pulley, lube and push in the new seal, put her all back together, make sure you do get the crank pulley tight and if poss get someone with a rattle gun to npip it up later.

Job done, no more oil leaks from your magna (well there anyway lol)

ok first of all i think you should read what you are posting before you tell me that i have no idea at all. In general i have more knowledge about engines that alot of people (i'm talking real world not just aussiemagna) and the majority of cars run 1 belt to turn the alternator and water pump off the HARMONIC BALLANCER please show me where i said cam... please.... the other thing i noticed about your post, it's not a crank pulley it's a harmonic ballancer ask any mechanic and they will tell you thats what it is called not the same thing spelt 3 differnt ways...

Please don't do this to my topic gahhh :rant: who cares I knew what he meant, it was good advice, dont go nit picking it's so frustrating. That post was not related to the topic and wasn't needed. Seriously who cares about a typo on a bloody forum, it's pretty obvious what he meant. And the term 'crank pulley' could make it easer to understand for people not in the know of technical names such as harmonic balancer (Yes, I spelt balancer correctly).

Aaanyways, back to my 'urgent' question just in case people dont read the last page (not urgent, but I'd like to know asap anyways. Will the engine mount need to be removed, and the engine lowered to remove the pulley? or even to have enough space to tap the seal into place properly?

Has been a while since I did just a seal and not the whole timing chain but from memory with the first gen you only need to lower the motor a cm or two so you should be able to undo the mount of the front of the engine while supporting the engine with a jack, it does not have to go far.

The term Crank Pulley was simply used for simplicity to save people then asking what a Harmonic Balancer was. Some will use either term as at the end of the day, it connects to the crank, has a pulley that drives belts and in SOME cases is also a balancer. On a lot of cars it is simply a pulley such as Rotary engines, most older Mazda's etc.

A lot of modern cars use a timing belt to run the water pump and while this may no be the case in all cars, before someone tells a forum member he has cooked his engine, all gaskets are shagged, perhaps think a little more about the engine and determine how the pump is actually run. For the record, be it a 2.6, or any of the v6 range, none of them use the alt belt to run a water pump. My reference to the Cam was simply a little sarcasm,

Moving forward I will ensure that I use the spell check so I do not offend anyone :)

Any back on topic, see how you go with the seal, is a simply thing to change with the hardest part to get to being the idler pulley for the aircon belt. If you have an old 14mm ring spanner lying around, I have chopped one in half and welded it into some tube, makes it a lot easier to crack the nut on the pulley. Let us know how you go and remember to lubricate the seal on the inside contact area of the pulley / balancer before you put it all back together.

Thanks again mate you've been a great help. I'm gonna take it up the road to a mechanic tomorrow morn before uni and if he can do it for me for a good price I will get him to do it while Im at uni 'cos I probably don't have enough time to do it within the next week (it's a very busy week grr, and I reqally need my car too) but if he wants to much $$$ for it I'll have to make time to do it one night or something. I'll keep ya posted with what heppens with it anyways.

Thanks to everyone for their input :D

VERY MUCH appreciate it :cool: the beer's on me ;)

When you get your quote, I would look at 2 hours max if they have not done it before, 1 hour if they are any good, depending on what the hourly rate is you would be looking $75 - $150

I put it in on monday cos I dont have the time this week, and really needed the car. He initially said $120 but ended up $157 cos apparently he needed to put a sleeve of some sort in cos the pulley was damaged... According to dad who picled it up while I was at uni. Then he put oil in although I left a bottle in the car for him to use. Bah at least its going again now and not leaking oil haha.

The first guy i got quoted by said its prob the timing cover cracked to be leaking that much oil... $700 hmmmm no thanks haha I can buy a whole car for that... Altho it wldnt be as good as mine haha.

Anyways, thanks heaps to everyone for their help wirth this, I very much appreciate it. Could be a good thing to put in the 1st gen info topic?

This isnt a specific first gen problem, it happens with the age of the car. A groove where the seal runs on the harmonic balancer forms, and the seal no longer can keep the oil in.

the sleeve basically presses over where the seal runs on the harmonic balancer - giving it a few more years of life.