Oil(ish) leak

[IanD]

My S2 111s back on the road yesterday after an extended 5 months rest to change radiator and some minor front clam tidy up.
Didn't tightened the front near side hose enough so very minor leak and a bugger and struggling to tighten the clip through the indicator

But bigger problem is after a test run yesterday, oilly fluids on driveway this morning, patch about a foot wide under the rear duct and smaller splodge at nearside jacking point. Engine oil looks ok and full, near side driveshaft ok no sign of any oil loss from looking into engine bay, but definitely dripped out underneath through the duct in the engine undertray and quite a lot of drips in undertray around the duct. Assume the jacking point puddle is just travel of the oil along the inside of the undertray. Just serviced 100 miles last year before radiator went.
Could it be some kind of simple oil breathing or anywhere specific I should be looking at ? Any suggestions would be good to focus, don't mind some internet searching but need some kind of focus with my limited mechanical knowledge.
Will take a better look tomorrow from underneath and remove the undertray if needed to check further for the source.

[robin]

Sump plug
Oil filter
Drive shaft gaiters
Flywheel crank oil seal (will leak down around the join between gearbox and engine block)
Cam oil seals - if gearbox end will leak down where the rear timing belt cover is; if main timing gear end will dribble out of the bottom of the timing belt cover.
Timing gear crank oil seal - will be similar to above.

If the gearbox was overfilled it will eject gearbox oil through the breather.

Check breather hose to inlet manifold (dog leg one from cam cover).

You can also get a leak between head and block (elastomer failure on head gasket) ; because of the way the block leans back, I think this tends to happen along the exhaust side of the block, though obviously could happen anywhere.

You can also get a failure of the gunk that sticks the two halves of the head together - quite unlikely.

Also check that the cam cover is tightened down all the way around (you need to remove the plastic engine cover first), or you'll get oil coming out around the edges of that).

Of all of these, the most likely are the drive shaft gaiters (they just fail sometimes) and the crank/cam oils seals (they can fail if left standing for a long time).

If you can see wet oil, clean it up with a rag and then run the engine to see where it emerges from.

Cheers,
Robin

[j2 lot]

I had a leak from the Europa that was corroded oil pipes - sounds like similar positioning (although they are different engines so that might be bollox)

[cla5h]

Given it's a 111s I'd guess it's the pipes to the oil cooler radiator. Two parallel pipes held by a clamping plate on the bottom right (from the rear) side of the engine - get the diffuser off and you should see where they are held in place (the oil cooler rad is further to the left {from the rear}). I know of a few cars where they've corroded at the clamping plate.

[j2 lot]

Does sound the same as the Europa then

[IanD]

Top marks to both of you, one of the oil pipes leaking at the clamp.
FFS though, 100 miles after an expensive service with lots of consumeables, radiator goes, just fixed, car taxed Wednesday expecting to use this weekend, 30miles driven and oil leak.
Pipes are pretty expensive as well, eliseparts/eliseshop don't do them anyone know if other companies do equivalent quality for cheaper ?

[cla5h]

Did the car this enginer came from (MG TF) have an oil cooler, and was it in same relative position as on the Elise?

Other than that, I doubt anyone would supply these pipes as standard, but I'm sure you could get them made up if you knew the right company to speak to (I don't have anyone I could recommend!)

[highlander]

If you have a branch near you then give Pirtek a try,was told by a friend with a couple of Vincents that the branch in Perth will make up custom pipes...hydraulics I think.

[IanD]

Yes I read about that, it should be possible to get them made up a lot cheaper although it was noted the connectors didn't seem to be to any of the standard sized ones.
Anyway as the oil cooler pipes are exactly as per the MG TF160 I bought the genuine Rover pipes from RimmerBros for £160 rather than Lotus price of £215 so hoping to finally be back on the road next week. A wee chat with Craig today to confirm some info also helped.
Shame with all the good weather over the weekend I had fancied joining you on your Mallaig run, another time hopefully.

[highlander]

Good result,back on the road for May.I think the weather was good everywhere in Scotland over the bank holiday weekend....back to work today and raining,not often it happens that way round
Going to try the camping gear in the car this week if it's dry...fingers crossed for the end of May.