So I've worked pretty tirelessly and finally got my 4.0 at great compression, purring quietly tick and exhaust leak free with plenty of horses under the hood, partly thanks to you guys on the forum.

But as can be expected, with great new compression comes an oil leak - mine seems to be coming from my cam sensor, I believe it has an o-ring that is prone to leaks.
I tracked the drip from the bell-housing, oil coating my starter and up to the sensor.
I know the oil filter adaptor is also prone to leaking, but that seems to be dry.

I looked online just to check and the procedure seems WAY more complicated than I thought.
Not really much info online about this, so if anyone can give me a step by step, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Cheers

 

nothing?

 

If you tracked it from the bell housing down to the starter, with nothing around the oil filter adpater, i can only assume you meant the crank sensor and not the cam sensor? The cam sensor is in the distributor. Unless its a 00-01, then its a camshaft synchronizer. The crank sensor is in the bellhousing, regardless. Oil around the bell housing up top sounds like a leaking valve cover gasket. Oil can run down to both the crank sensor as well as the starter. I cleaned both using electircal cleaner on my 97.

What year is your XJ?

 

Yeah I got a 00 xj, no distributer, I thought h it's the cam sensor, still a newbie.

I did start around the valve cover, couldn't find anything, replaced the VC gasket very recently too. The oil seems to be running back along the lip of the sump and block, over the starter and on to the bellhousing. I cleaned the area with engine cleaner (it took the same route to drip down the motor)
Gonna drive it a bit today to see if there's any fresh oil.

well I'm pretty sure it's coming from that sensor, the problem is there's more to just removing that thing and changing an o ring, which is what I'm looking for help with.

 

 

Thanks man!

Ok I think I've got it. Found a thread where someone did what I was afraid I might, so will read through that too.

Question; All I need to do is replace an o ring on the sensor. If I remove it and put it back exactly as I found it, do I still need to set the motor to top dead centre? Or would that be too risky?

 

Thats entirely up to your skill level. Motor can always be brought up to TDC and installed as if motor was just built. If you try mark line on sensor and block to match up.