baffeled by oil leak 2.8 a6 quattro fixed but still leaks

[70 eliminator]

ok sounds stupid to say its fixed but still leaks however it is seeming that way.

dad bought a 200k mile a6 for really cheap since it leaked like a sieve. any way he drove it for a week or so and it leaked about 2.5 qts every 200 miles .

I took it apart put in service position and proceeded to do valve covers breather tubes tensioners cam seals and cam plugs oil cooler seal and thermostat. fixed a couple coolant related things as well but they are un related to the leak

fire it up and check my work no leaks any where seems good.
drive it to work next day and see a 1.75 sq foot wet spot on the asphalt
take it to the car wash to clean off the remaining oil from previous massive leak so I can see whats going on .

drive home still smell little burning oil so I assume the tensioner or plug on the pass side is leaking

get on it with a mirror and flash light check the complete premiter of the cover all plugs and the tensioners and not a wet spot to be found. I am a bit confounded as it has to be pretty high to leak on to the exhaust so it had to be up top.


then I guess it must have been residual oil trapped in the sub frame. blowing around etc...

the guy before drove it with bad suction valve and massive leaks for like 50k it was soaked.

cleaned it again idled for 1 hr no leak reved to 3k for 4 or 5 min no leak dripping.
drove it to work on high way
still have smell and some puddle and discovered small coolant leak from vertical pipe behind driver head.

does burning g12++ smell like oil???

any way still had oil drip.as well. seemed to be running down the pass motor mount casting thn dripping onto the silicone motormount hood then drippin on to the starter cable and finally passing across the sway bar before reaching ground.
but it looked pretty old and dirty etc dosent seem like a big or a fresh leak.

tonight I spent 2.5 hrs idling with uv dye in system and a massive black light I use for dye penetrant testing. and not a single sign of the dye any where not even where I was seeing the kind of nasty dirty drip.

open oil cap and it looks like a predator was bled out in there it was definably fluorescing.

so I began to theorize it has big time blow by since its at 200k and its overwhelming the breather system.

so I drove it with dye for 40 minutes on high way .

just spent 25 min with light no glow outside the crank case.

I have let the oil get to lower section of cross hatch at this point. so maby its slower. but I smell a little burning but almost none is making it to ground.

seems to be worse when I just fire up the car and drive on the high way .

can a head gasket leak oil and stop when head is warmed up?


now I wonder if its the transmission lines the gear oil seal on the out put or what..

totally cant figure it out I guess I will drive it for 2 days to see if its showing dye but if its the trans I might blow up the tip.

anybody else have problems like this??

[C5S6]

Sounds like you are on the right track.
Keep checking the fill level and continue wiping / cleaning as much as you can.

I bought an A6 (<---) over the summer that leaked from everywhere and needed a clutch. I spent almost as much time with simple green and shop towels cleaning all the sludge buildup from who knows how long leaking as I did turning wrenches.
Yes the subframe can hold a bunch of oil - this one did!
I'd also clean clean clean the belly pan (if it's still got one?) as that is an excellent indicator of where the oil is coming from if you still have a leak.

[70 eliminator]

no joy yet because it snowed I drove it for 2 days and I am getting on it with the light tonight.

[70 eliminator]

still no uv dye so I think there is a residual pool or just truly soaked heat shields and pipes perpetually burning off oil.