Duratec 2.0LPlenum Breather Hose - Oil Leak

[AndrewB]

I found a thin covering of oil on the underside of my sump and bellhousing today and so I started to look at the joint positions for a leak. Whilt under the car I looked up and saw oil covering the plastic housing (HA Valve) on the side of the engine.   I removed the plenum breather pipe (Caterham part No. 30E261A) and saw that the orange elbow which goes into the plastic housing seemed to have oil coming out of the seal where it joins the plastic housing.  There was also a bit of oil in the beather pipe.

A few questions if I may.  What is the HA Valve, is it a HA Valve?  Should I be seeing oil leaking from it (I suspect not)?   Has anyone seen this before?  When I get back inside I will upload some pictures.

Many Thanks

Andrew

[mic]

Remove the breather hose to the plenum completely, blank off the breather with rubber bungs and just allow the engine to breathe  from the cam cover, to either a catch tank if wet sump or the oil tank on a dry sump.

[AndrewB]

Thanks Mic.  Would anything need changing with the ecu.  Apologies for what may be simple questions to others, it is all new to me.  I have put some picture on my blog.

[mic]

No, just remove the hose and seal the openings. There is a solid plate available to replace the plastic breather plate.

[John Vine]

Back in 2008, I had a problem with oil smoke on my wet-sump R400D on sharp right-handers (bad enough to be black-flagged at a Donny trackday) -- discussed here.  With help from BC (including mic), I ended up re-routing the crankcase breather to a catch tank.  I did this rather than blank off the crankcase breather in order to be able to monitor any oil loss caused by overfilling.

JV

[AndrewB]

Thanks John, I cleaned the area last week and also tightened up the pipe fixings.  After 70 miles last weekend and again this weekend I have a small amount of oil coming out of the valve again but a lot less than I had before.  The catch tank sounds sensible.  I guess it needs to be lower than the valvle position.

 

[John Vine]

Here are some pics of my extra breather. 

But...looking at your blog, your problem appears to be a leak where the plastic (rotating) elbow enters the crankcase side plate.  If so, simply fitting a separate breather isn't going to solve it. 

I've never investigated that area, but I imagine there's an O-ring in there.  Whether that's a service item, I couldn't say.  No doubt CC or a Ford dealer could advise.  At worst, you may need a complete new plate (and then you could fit a separate crankcase breather if you want).  Alternatively, you could fit a blanking plate instead (is this the one?) and, as mic says, let the engine breathe through the camcover breather.

JV