There is an Oring, that sits between pump and engine block. The shaft itself is sealed inside the pump, and this seal is not replacable.
I have the water pump out, and when I turned it over, oil ran out of the breather hole. I am pretty sure this means the oil I am seeing under the car on this side is being pushed past the drive shaft and into the water pump housing, and then out of the breather hole on top of the housing and dripping down the side and to the bottom attachment boltā¦then onto the ground. I did not see any oil in the coolant so I expect there is a seal on the water side of the driveshaft that is still holding strong. I have ordered a replacement water pump and plan to replace the Orings in the block for the driveshaft and the outlet port. It looks like the pump I ordered has both of these included, along with the seal for the interface with the plastic water housing.
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Back to misfiresā¦I am installing the new NGK spark plugs and noticed in two of them, #8&9 cylinders, that a small bit of oil was present at the base of the plugs. Since I am very confident that the valve cover gasket is not leaking, it would appear the seal between the head and the intermediate plate is leakingā¦ugh, not another s6 blessing 
. I am not eager to pull the engine for such a small leak so I am brainstorming methods to āslow downā the leak at this seam. One idea I had was to use a silicone-based adhesive tape, or some kind of flashing-tape with an aluminum backer, to cover the seamā¦such that it is stable at high temperatures and will provide some kind of barrier to oil pushing into the plug hole. Does anyone know if this oil is under pressure adjacent to the plug holesā¦are the cam journals right there? Another idea I had was to rough up the surfaces of the head and plate at the seam and use JBweld to bridge them to cause a higher resistance path for the oil, but I am afraid different thermal expansion coefficients will cause a fairly rigid body (after the JBWeld sets up) to break free of the metal surfaces, eventuallyā¦thus right back to a leak, and now with plastic pieces all over in the plug cavity. I understand everything I attempt will be a ābandaidā but I donāt want to pull the engine to fix a really small leakā¦its just in a really bad place! Any other methods or ideas people have, short of pulling the engine out? Is it possible to lower the engine enough to get the intermediate plate off and fixed without actually pulling the engine? Also, as a side note, I am purchasing the coils in addition to the plugsā¦the ones that were in there are no-name so likely from Chinaā¦so maybe canāt take the heat that this engine puts out? If figured for the exact $200 on top of the $100 plugs I might as well be hitting this misfire issue with as big of a hammer as I can throw at it, since I already have it apart!
Ted, I think there is a thread on here that talks about using a portion of a bicycle tire tube on the coil pack to create a seal between the coil pack and the head. From the thread discussion, that seems to be a good, functional solution. I havenāt done it yet, but I did carefully apply sealant (permatex ultra black) at the joint inside one of the spark plug tubes and it hasnāt leaked again so I bet the bike tube does work. I spent a lot of time making sure the sleeve was very clean. I, personally, would not use JB weld - I donāt think itās necessary.
Last night I used sandpaper on a drum to lightly scratch the two plug walls that are having leaks, and then wiped them down with rubbing alcohol. Then, I used a dowl on a drill to apply silicone Red sealant to the walls. The dowl is the same size as the coils so I am confident the coils will fit down the hole afterwards. I used a rag patch in the bottom of the plug hole so nothing fell down into the cylinderā¦and I will be using a grab tool to pull the small rag patch out of the hole after the silicone dries. I wanted the walls to be continuous so they are less likely to peel off. You can see in the picture the walls are pretty well coated, so I hope it holds the oil back!!
The plugs with the black rubber boots will fit the plug hole but not apply any load to the ID - where the oil is leaking from. The idea of the rubber tire wrapped around the coil is to insert it into the plug hole such that the number of wraps of the tire will cause interference with the walls, and therefore the rubber tire will compress during assembly, and push on the walls/seam where it is leaking. It looks to me that there are actually two seams in the plug hole below the valve cover gasket that could potentially be leaking. With my method of applying a layer of silicone sealant I am trying to create a surface seal that is rigid enough that low pressure oil canāt push through itā¦but still expands and contracts with the metal without breaking off. Any pressure behind the oil and nothing will hold it back, but since it is just a very slow trickle, I hope that the pressure from the sealant will hold it back once it sees the resistance. This is a much faster fix than pulling the engine to replace the gaskets between the head and the intermediate plate!
Today I found a post on how to test the coils for resistances and opens (here is the link
and instructions below. I had a 100% correlation between the markings on coils and the connection between housing grounds and pin4 being an open circuit instead of connected with very low resistanceā¦like 0.1ohm. I did do swapping of two coils and plugs between cylinders so I am wondering if I am missing some grounds on these cylinders, as well. I am going to go to the car connectors and very pin4 is connected to the body ground at the battery postā¦.and if not, fix those terminals or ground wires. The misfires I am seeing appear to be related either directly, or partially, to the coil pack housing not being grounded to pin4 properly (or at all). I am wondering if during the removal process the top gets rotated (to loosen them slightly) and the connection from the metal collar of the coil to the ground is broken. Maybe the coil isnāt impacted as much at higher rpmās since the frequency of the signal wave is greater and therefore more energy is present in the coil and so it doesnāt need the shielding? I may talk to my electrical engineer friend and see what he thinks about this theory! I have all new coils being installed, and will be checking connector grounds, so we will see how the misfires react.
To ohm out your ignition coils:
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remove ignition coil
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Set meter to measure resistance(ohms)
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Place either lead on pin one and hold it there (youāll see the pins labeled when you look into the coils receptacle). I have alligator clips on my leads which does make it easier to do but it can be done without them obviously.
From pin 1 to pin 2 you should read around 70k-80kohms much higher or lower indicates bad/failing coil.
From pin 1 to pin 3 you should read around 70k-80k ohms much higher or lower indicates bad/failing coil.
From pin 1 to pin 4 you should read OL (open circuit)
From pin 2 to pin 3 you should read a range from 350-500ohms much higher or lower indicates bad/failing coil.
From pin 2 to pin 4 you should read OL (open circuit)
From pin 3 to pin 4 you should read OL (open circuit)
Place a lead on pin 4 and place other lead on the metal surface of the coil and you should read very low resistance only about 10-15ohms. Pin 4 is your grounded (neutral) pin.
If meter is displaying any measurements between pin 4 and anyother pin then coil is bad or failing as that would indicate a short to ground.
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I tore into one of the coils and it looks like there is a small tab that is bent up on the sheet metal shield that is supposed to contact a metal finger on the coil top to ground it. It looks really easy (and I think this is what happened to 5 of mine) is the metal shield rotates, maybe bending the tab on the thin sheet metal shield) and loses contact or has little contact with the metal finger. Once this happens it looks like it can produce high resistance between pin4 of the top and the shield , or no longer grounds it at all by showing an open. I still donāt know if a grounded shield makes the difference in a coil working or not but since the coil is supposed to see a square wave of differing frequency it is possible the spark plug itself is creating noise that gets back on the signal wire if the plug is improperly grounded. I will be starting my engine soon to see if the new coils fix my misfires!
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New coils fix a lot of issues. Iād love to hear how your attempt to keep oil out of the cylinders works as well. keep us posted on that.
Well, the misfires seem to be betterā¦.but still there at 2200 rpm. When the choke is on it runs pretty smooth.
Back to the issue of oil leaksā¦ā¦I think I have all the ones on the top and the front, and the oil cooler repaired. It looks like I have 1 very tough one left at the interface of the bottom to the blockā¦.looks like others before me tried to put a face sealant on itā¦ā¦anybody know how to fix this one without a complete tear down? See pic below
Looks like itās a bedplate leak. Unfortunately itās an engine out job
Can you get a little further back on the picture.
I can try to get a few more shots but it is tight in there! It looks like others have tried to stops leaks a bit forward here, too, and maybe they are finally leaking through. I may try the same fix if I can get it to stop leaking for a while! It seems so excessive to have to drop an engine to stop a small oil leak, but starting to realize the back of this engine is probably as cooked as the front so all those seals are probably hardened, and either already leaking, or will be shortly. If I can get this thing running well, and not leaking, it may need to go to someone who doestāt need a daily driver and can just tear this thing down as a fun garage project.
Here is a picture of what it looks like after I coated the leaking area with Permatex Aviation Form-A-Seal. I roughened all the exterior surfaces with a dremel cutoff wheel, then cleaned both sides of the seam with part cleaner spray, used compressed air to dry it, then coated the area multiple times (as the sealant is fairly low viscosity). I let the sealant sit out for a 1/2 hour to thicken before applying additional coats. The cure time is 24hrs on the bottle, but I may give it an extra 24hrs due to colder temperatures. More cure time canāt hurt anything.
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Not a bad solution and not only that but as some point you can remove the coating if youāre able to do the repair.
I am afraid this coating isnāt curing to a hard-enough layer to hold back the oil pressure (as I see a small bit of oil on my floor with the engine not even running), so it looks like I will have to remove it (not that difficult since it isnāt very tough) and replace it with Reinzosil 70-31414-10, or the Audi-recommended Loctite SI 5970 gasket maker material. I will let you all know what works (or doesnāt)
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Well, I removed the Aviation sealant that didnāt do the job and replaced it with red silicone. This worked pretty well without engine start but failed pretty quickly after startup because I didnāt wrap the layer of silicone around the edge and under the area that is leaking. I am going to either use ultra black or wait for the Reinzosil to come in early next week.
I couldnāt wait for the Reinzosil (too impatient I guess) so I covered the area in JB Weld. It definitely reduced the rate of leakage, but still leaks while runningā¦not when off. I am going to have to strip it off again and use Reinzosil, probably should have waitedā¦.the itch to do something got me againā¦.argh, slow and steady with this thing!