There's a guy on YouTube that did a front timing cover on the 3.0H6 engine in, in his cold garage. Let me find it.

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Thanks, but that's not the same thing at all. My leak is on the underside of the head, so means taking the camshaft cap that runs the length of the head from front to back off, after removing the valve cover, and the rocker assembly.

 

Thanks, but that's not the same thing at all. My leak is on the underside of the head, so means taking the camshaft cap that runs the length of the head from front to back off, after removing the valve cover, and the rocker assembly.

Oh shoot! I didn't think like that. So it's basically the valve cover? But in an ohc engine the cover is over the cam which is over the valves!

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I doubt a bad PCV would be allowing/causing this leak. If you have enough crankcase pressure to force past an RTV seal, you usually start blowing out the cam/crank seals first.

It CAN be done in the car, but it's a royal PITA and is not confidence-inspiring when trying to reassemble. The "cam cap" is actually the entire cam cradle and has to be removed as one unit. I was going to suggest inspecting the AVLS block on top, but that's driver's side (pass side is in the rear).

You're sure it's not traveling from on top of the head, like a bad valve cover gasket? Traditionally, the heads are not disassembled in a headgasket job (unless complete disassembly for a machine shop or other repair work). I'd ask the shop if they did disassemble. If not, I'd look elsewhere as a leak at the factory sealant is extremely uncommon.

 

I doubt a bad PCV would be allowing/causing this leak. If you have enough crankcase pressure to force past an RTV seal, you usually start blowing out the cam/crank seals first.

It CAN be done in the car, but it's a royal PITA and is not confidence-inspiring when trying to reassemble. The "cam cap" is actually the entire cam cradle and has to be removed as one unit. I was going to suggest inspecting the AVLS block on top, but that's driver's side (pass side is in the rear).

You're sure it's not traveling from on top of the head, like a bad valve cover gasket? Traditionally, the heads are not disassembled in a headgasket job (unless complete disassembly for a machine shop or other repair work). I'd ask the shop if they did disassemble. If not, I'd look elsewhere as a leak at the factory sealant is extremely uncommon.

It's definitely leaking from the seam on the lower side of the head, just behind the sticking out part on the main head casting behind the front lower valve cover screw, and back about an inch or two from the that point. The RTV is pushed out of the seam there slightly and some could be pulled off in a thin strip (leaving some behind), and using the Permatex spray sealant has shown that there are a couple of pinholes in the sprayed sealant where it's pushing out. The spray sealant does seem to have reduced how often there's a burning oil smell when a drop gets onto the catalytic converter, but it's not done the job fully.

There's no oil on the timing belt, and the valve cover gaskets were all replaced during the head gasket service. The camshaft cap was not removed, and neither camshaft seal was replaced.

I'm thinking to do the PCV valve, as I have no idea when this one was changed or cleaned, then have a second go with the Permatex, and if that doesn't work, it'll be a trip to the mechanic that did the headgasket job for the RTV to be redone. At least he knows that the engine comes out fairly cleanly, he did a good job generally, and he didn't do stuff that didn't need doing. The Permatex isn't too hard to clean off (no harder than RTV).

 

You can pull the rocker cover and clean the seam of the cam cap really well on the inside, then slap some ultragrey in there. It's a little risky, but I've done it successfully. One of the cars I did head gaskets on had a bit of the sealant blown off by what I think was the hot tanking the heads got. I reached in there with a pick and pulled out the bit of sealant that was flapping around, then resealed it from the inside with ultragrey. I was careful not to leave a bunch in there, wiping it up real well so only the seam got ultragrey with minimal amounts on the cap.

 

The leak is very likely caused by not putting enough ultra gray or fujibond on the cam cap when installing. I would not want to try removing cap cams on the vehicle. Could you try running a bead of ultra gray or ultra black underneath the cam cap along the seam?? It might work better than the spray sealant.

 

The local specialist who did the headgaskets in April has now fixed this, pulling the engine again and redoing the liquid gasket. A false alarm due to a bad (OEM) oil filter meant that we've been checking this for a while as it showed drips on the filter, sump and back of the camshaft cap, but it's now been good for several weeks - with me checking regularly by holding my phone camera under the car to take a shot of the oil filter area.

 

Thanks for following up. Did your mechanic mention what the issue was? Just redid the sealant and it was good to go?