Where's That Oil Coming From?

[Ben Thar]

Went out in the tractor garage this morning to start the old '99 John Deere 345 with the FD611V twin engine, as it hasn't been started since October. It ran fine when I last used it last fall...no problems could be found.
This morning was different... the tractor started okay and ran fine after some warm-up due to it being 15 degrees here. But, that was about it as smoke started bellowing up from the left front of the engine. Not from the exhaust, but from the other side. Shut the tractor down and looking for the smoking source, find oil had coated the exhaust manifold coming from the left engine head. The smoke related due the oil on the hot manifold was burning off. The wife was after be to help her clean the kitchen cabinets, that I didn't get the chance to search further on where the oil leak was coming from. I've read on here or another John Deere forum the leak may be from a bad value cover gasket/o-ring in the cover, as this value cover is right above the manifold/head area. I'm going to tackle this matter come tomorrow morning and report my findings.

 

[Ben Thar]

I have a "repair tip" for Ben Thar. Take a 10MM socket and racket and remove the black value cover. There you will find a very small O-ring that goes in a grove in the value cover. Not much "sealing" there to prevent oil leaking from such a poor application from the O-ring. So, here's the best solution....clean and dry any oil residue from the engine head and take some Black RTV sealant and coat the value cover flange and the O-ring. Reinstall the value cover, tighten the four bolts to specs and let dry for 24 hours. That should stop any future oil leak on value cover. Reply if it works.

 

[Wrenchin]

use right stuff gray rtv sold at napa engine can be run immediately upon application stuff is awesome.