2000 camry oil leak

[mail2_jb]

2000 v4 camry le, 75K miles. 10w30 oils every 3-3.5k miles.

I noticed an oil leak yesterday during an oil change. After reading some posts here on oil leaks, I cleaned the engine bay and drove for a day. Today I checked the engine bay again and the oil leak is coming from the circled area (http://www.4shared.com/photo/r946UAtK/leak.html,this pic is before cleaning the engine. There was a small puddle of oil in the circled area as you can see.). Not a huge leak, but may be one or two drops per day (I may be off, but I didn't see any new oil drops under the circled area. There is almost a full drop of oil hanging on that cirled area when I checked today, after 50miles of drive). I park in the garage at night and there never been a single drop of oil on the garage floor. So this looks like a small leak.


I have couple of questions before I tackle this job:
1. First,change the valve gasket and see if that fixes the problem?
2. to change this gasket follow this thread How-To Guide: Removing and Painting a Valve Cover - 5SFE -- 56K warned Lots of Pics, right?. How do I torque that spark plug nut. the op used a wrench to remove it, so how did he put it back and torqued? (17-19 lbft, right?)
3. Do I have to get a new pcv valve and grommet or can I reuse the same?
4. I haven't changed timing belt, wp, seals etc on this car yet. Before I started doing my on DIY on cars, I called the local dealer and he said, they only need to change the TB at 90-100k miles and nothing to worry now.Should I change it now or wait until I reach 80-85-90K miles?

I would really appreciate any pointers on these question. You guys have helped me in the past, so I am pretty sure I will get some valuable inputs from all the good folks at TN.

Thanks
John

[bdy0003]

1. By all means, replace your valve cover gasket. It does not take long at all.
2. Yes follow that thread. To torque the nut, you need a 30mm socket and a torque wrench. Make sure you tighten the inside (2 and 3) then move on to the outside (1 and 4) to make presures even.
3. Get new ones. I suggest doing while the valve cover is OFF because the grommet, depending on its condition, is easier to remove.
4. Since its not a big oil leak, I would hold off for now. Also, you don't know where the oil is leaking. But when you do change it, make sure you replace all the seals, water pump, etc...just so you wont have to go there again. O and make sure you get OEM products.

Good luck!

[fenixus]

yeah it looks like the valve cover gasket is leaking. I had same leak on the other side and oil was collecting on intake runners to cylinders 1&2 (yours look like oil is collecting by 3&4).

if you need more pics on the task, this thread has some more pics on removing valve cover:
DIY Fuel rail & injectors removal - 4cyl i4 5s-fe gen4 camry - PICS !

[dave1811]

When I replaced mine a few weeks back, the tube nuts were just finger tight. I bought an OEM valve cover gasket and reinstalled and the leak has stopped. I replaced the PCV valve a few months back. I think next time I might put some blue locktight thread locker on the the tube nuts so maybe they won't back off as easy. It was real easy to take off the valve cover, maybe a 20-30 minute job. Another benefit is you can see how much sludge, if any, is under your valve cover. Surprisingly, mine had very little sludge. Make sure you put a little RTV on the cam lobes and the corners on each of the valve cover ends. Mine was leaking in the same spot, had 165k miles on a 1999. If there is an Autozone near you, they have the 30mm socket on their loaner program if you don't want to buy one. I bought my 30mm socket though.

Dave

[mail2_jb]

Replaced my valve cover gasket last week. I followed How-To Guide: Removing and Painting a Valve Cover - 5SFE -- 56K warned Lots of Pics and How-To Guide: Removing and Painting a Valve Cover - 5SFE -- 56K warned Lots of Pics

I had couple of issues during this process:

1. I couldn't take the valve cover that easily. There was a bolt on the right side of the cover on a "?" shaped plate. It was protruding a lot and the cover was hitting it the valve gover. So I had to remove the whole plate, disconnect some wires to remove the valve cover.

2. Had to pull the throttle valve (like accelerating) to slide the cover out

3. I ordered a gasket set however those idiots gave me just the gasket. After I removed the old gasket, I realized I didn't have the spark plug gaskets. Had to use the old one (they are in good shape though)

4. I couldn't take the semi circular plug. To remove that part on the left side of the engine, I think we need to remove the timing belt cover, timing belt and the apron. On the right side, you can use a flat screw drive to pry it off (like MrPerkins' post).

This only took 30 min and I am checking and re-torqing those nuts every day. So far no leaks at all.

A big big Thank You to all who helped.

John

[deadrx7conv]

Timing belt is a 60k item.

[Tom 2000]

Originally Posted by deadrx7conv

Timing belt is a 60k item.

Timing belt is a 90k miles on the gen4 (1997-2001).

See page 23 of the official Toyota Scheduled Maintenance Guide.

http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/docum...g/2000toyo.pdf

[bdy0003]

Read his sig. haha jk

On Gen 3s, the interval is 60k, but I guess they changed things. Just like how they said to change the oil every 7500miles for Gen 3s.

Originally Posted by Tom 2000

Timing belt is a 90k miles on the gen4 (1997-2001).

See page 23 of the official Toyota Scheduled Maintenance Guide.

http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/docum...g/2000toyo.pdf