The Easy Button

I was preparing to remove the harmonic balancer to replace the front oil seal. Although the engine was wet with oil, I took a look at the area around the HB and noticed it was dirty, but dry. I then rag-checked the area behind the HB and confirmed it was dry - not leaking. I cleaned the engine and ran it for 10 minutes. I noticed the engine was wet in the vicinity of the oil pump and alternator bracket. The pooling seemed to be most significant under/near where the alternator mount bolts to the engine block.

I removed the alternator and the bracket and cleaned up the area with a rag. Just to be sure it wasn't the oil pump I put a torque wrench on the four bolts and checked them at 13 ft/lbs (the spec is 11 to 15). I got a click on all of them. The timing cover was a different story. I started checking the bolts that weren't suspected of leaking and found they could all use about a 1/4 turn. The one just above the wet zone took a full two turns. The one just below took almost a full turn. It would appear that the significant oil leak was the result of two loose bolts on the timing cover.

That was a heck of a lot easier then replacing a front seal.