vvti 1uz and oil leaks not vc?

[xspsi6]

Is there any common things that cause oil leaks that is not vc gasket related? It seems to be below the vc gasket.

I picked up a 98 ls400 for my wife and did the vc job right off the bat thinking that would do it however it seems worse than ever before as it has the whole bottom of the car coated in oil and leaks about a quart ever 100 miles or so which I can say it is not coming from the front cover area or the ps pump and seems worse on the passenger side so I thought maybe a head gasket so I did the compression test along with leak down as to which it is all about as perfect as you can get.

So I turn to my fellow uz friends for any input on this.

Thanks in advance

 

[Zuffen]

Check the ¨half moon¨seals on the back of the heads.

These seals close off the rar of the camshafts and will allow oil to run down the rear of the engine.

 

[xspsi6]

Well those were dry I just checked today but I will give the full back story of the very odd problem I have been having.

Changed the vc gaskets right after I bought the car then about 1 week later the starter went out so I changed it and right after I buttoned it all up it started smoking out of the exhaust very badly so I changed the pcv with an oem Toyota one along with a replacement of the rubber hose which I just used bulk hose from the parts store then it stopped smoking for about 15 miles or so then the next day about 10 miles in to the trip to work it started smoking again so I just plugged the vacuum hose from the intake to the pcv then ran a hose from the pcv valve to a rigged up catch can I made from an oil bottle then the problem of the smoking stopped for a few weeks so it must be getting positive crank case pressure in order to suck it through the pcv system.

I then did the leak down and compression yesterday and all testing came back very good which I then hooked back up the pcv valve and my wife called from the way to work saying it was smoking real bad again so I am stumped on this one to say the least.

What could cause this positive crank case pressure if compression and leak down is good?

I am open to anything.

 

[gloverman]

Did you clean oil out of the intake manifold. We often find up to a litre in there if the engine has been in slow traffic.

 

[xspsi6]

Yes cleaned it with carb cleaner when it was off but it was not bad then however now I am going to pull the vc's again to verify the oil flow paths are not plugged or blocked in any way as this would cause this problem so I will report back after I do that tomorrow afternoon.