Maj Dad

I had an oil leak from the timing compartment twice in four months on my 2010 2500 SLT Lone Star 4X4. It had about 33,000 miles on it when the leak started in Feb 2013. Oil was seeping from the gasket on the front of the engine and running down the front. After a little over three weeks (!) the dealer, Ingram Park Auto Center in San Antonio, said it was a defective gasket on the timing compartment and they replaced it the beginning of March.

In mid-June we were in a fairly remote campground outside Lake City CO, and I spotted the telltale oil stains in the dust of our campsite. We took a break from our vacation and made the two-hour drive to Montrose CO where Flower Motor Company looked at the oil running down the front of the engine, and said the timing compartment gasket had failed and needed a new gasket. The service manager said he did not tell his diesel mechanic about the problem I had four months earlier, and that the mechanic diagnosed the problem independently of the earlier malfunction. Flower Motors was much more responsive than the San Antonio dealer (I don't go to Ingram Park any more!), and had me back in my truck in five days.

I am in my mid-fifties and have never had this happen to me in any vehicle before; now it has happened twice in four months. Has anybody on the forum had this problem? Do any of you have an idea what may be going on with my truck?

BigIron70

There have been several instances of this problem. The engineers at Chrysler know of this but they did not elaborate to me as to the reason why it happens. Other then replacing gasket and torque cover to factory spec there is nothing more that a tech. could do, that I know of. I have only had one instance personally that I had to replace gasket recently on a 4500 Ram. I used a factory gasket and used gasket sealer, I did torque timing cover housing bolts to factory spec. and replaced front crank seal. This truck did not have a repeat or recheck as we call it with the same problem as of yet. You can see in this photo that the gasket had shifted into housing causing oil leak. This repair only paid 7.7 hrs. and required every bit of that allowed time to complete. I just hope I do not see a rash of these coming into shop and other then the killer dowel pin on second generation the timing case has never been a big issue.

Maj Dad

Thanks for the response. So far no one at any of the three Dodge service departments I have used has encountered this issue yet, nor have they even heard of it. I guess I just watch and wait. I guess the good news is that since it is a slow oil leak, it shouldn't strand me in the middle of nowhere. It would be nice to know WHY this happens, but I guess that won't happen unless this becomes a widespread problem that Chrysler will be forced to research by consumer demand.

Numidian

I wonder if just using RTV instead of the paper gasket, would help.

BigIron70

I thought about using RTV but RTV has a assembly time limit of just 5 minutes before it starts to set up. This is not a workable time since the camshaft has to be installed after housing is partially tightened into position. Final bolts go in when the timing cover is installed. This could take up to 15 to 20 minutes depending on camshaft install time. The gasket was eliminated on the cover and mopar gray RTV is used after the first generation of Cummins diesels.

denhammkc

I have a leak up front and the dealer tech said it was cam seal BUT will not fix because I have deleted. Are the cam and crank gaskets something I could replace myself and does anyone know if there has been a write up on this.