Oil leaks / cam chain tensioner seal replacement

[Last Triumph]

Right then..... some more thoughts before I draw a line under this whole oil leak issue.

I happened to meet a recently retired VAG tech yesterday who was happy to talk oil leaks with me and seemed to know exatly what I was on about.
He said that once the rocker cover is sorted, any issues round the back are either the cam chain tensioner seal or the head gasket. There's nothing esle it can be.

He said that the rear end of the head gasket is a common issue due to warping of the heads on a high mileage engine. I talked about replacing the gasket and he said not to bother..... Somewhat amazed, I asked why, and he said that the gaskets don't just go for the sake of it, they only go when the head is warped, and if the head is warped and I change the gasket, it will leak again within a few days - 'seen it so many times' he said. He then reasoned that to cure it properly, I'd need to get the head skimmed which whilst less than £50 at a specialist, would require a complete head strip down - a real pain in the *** for a guy at home. Therefore, as the design of the gasket means that it can leak without any detrimental effect on the running of the engine, it just isn't worth the hassle of a complete strip down, cambelt removal etc, etc for a leak that isn't squirting like a oil gusher!

Fair enough I thought - can't argue with that, far easier to wipe the under tray down every six months that to risk really screwing things up.
He enquired a bit further, and when I told him that oil was collecting on the mounting stud from the heat sheild / drip tray (amongst others) as pictured below....



He said that if it was the head gasket leaking, it wouldn't be getting oil up there, meaning it must have come from the cam chain tensioner.

Which got me thinking... I then looked back at the pics before I'd been cleaning and found this pic...



.....which pretty much confirmed that it isn't the head gasket causing this mess!

So, I guess this means that with or without the head gasket, I can pretty much safely say that the cam tensioner is leaking which in turn means that fixing this will at least reduce the leak (s) further again, if not stop them completely if it is the head gasket as well.

But, in lihght of all of the above, if I can get the entire top end oil tight, it will be good enough.

I bought a genuine seal from VW today and I'm confused - it is two very this metal strips with a few blobs of blue something or othr on them. I was expecting rubber? The half moon that goes underneath them is rubber, but the flat plate is metal???

Could someone answer th following please...
1)Why is there two in the pack? Mistake? or are there meant to be two? (they're identical)
2)Are they assembled dry, or with a sealant? If so, where - top? bottom, both sides? etc?
3) Is the half moon assembled dry like on the other side?
4) If I use sealant on the cormers of the rocker this time, is it just a blob on the sharp corners?
5) Is there any way of geting the tensioner out without remvoing the intake cam and front cam caps?

Thanks guys!

[Last Triumph]

Very busy day, but successful!

Managed to get the tensioner seal and half moon out without removing the tensioner or cams which saved alot of grief.

Cleaned everything up and reassembled andhey presto - it still runs!

I let it run for 25 mins to get right up to temp and pressure to see if I'd helped with the leak(s).

Good news is that most of it has gone which is a major releif, I can tell you.

There is still a small leak from the join between the tensioner solenoid and the tensioner housing, but this, if I understand correctly is a simple O ring job and shouldn't take more than 10 mins.

So, all in all I'm very pleased. Any oil leaks I may still have aren't bad enough to drip onto the floor after 25 mins of running and resting for an hour, so that's gotta be a result!

Where can I get an o ring for the solenoid from and has anyone else had one of these leak and replaced it before?