Oil leak from head gasket?

[gs.davies]

Has anyone seen an oil leak that results in a puddle of oil below number one spark plug where the oil hasn’t tracked down from a leaking rocker cover gasket?

[NicholasUpton]

Yep, ended up being a leak from the high pressure oil feed, weeping around the headgasket. I have had 2 engines do it now.

[Alex]

Yes.
When it's really bad it's almost like the crankshaft oil seal has gone.

[Allen Brzeczek]

Very interesting and has got me thinking, I too appear to have an oil leak in the same area. My immediate thoughts were to reseal the rocker cover but evidence of a leak still persists more so after a quick thrash when oil pressure gauge indicates the best part of 100psi.

[gs.davies]

I agree is it unusual and I've long since suspected the rocker cover gasket but I've meticulously cleaned and sealed it and I'm 100% confident it's not coming from the usual source. Further reading in places where the MG and Minor folk have discussions like these also seemed to point to a potential oil leak in that area. It's just odd that it's pooling around the front. That said, the back of the engine's soaked in the stuff and oil consumption has been biblical.

I'm pulling the head to swap it shortly, so I'll report back.

[CooperTune]

While not the same issue as I never got to start this 90 Rover Cooper engine. After assembly and placing on engine test stand, I filled the cooling system with plain water. I had not added break in oil but was making connections when I noticed water dripping from the transmission case below the speedo drive housing. I quit usings copper gaskets years ago. The new BK450 right out of the packing was installed right way around and torqued. After removing alternator and adding lots of bright light we found two tiny streams running from between head and block just below thermostat housing. In order I backed off each head stud 1/2 turn and retorqued one at a time. While this seemed to improve things, the leak continued and appeared all along the front of cyl head. I removed the cyl head to find all water transfer holes were leaking. Checking the head gasket I found the cyl compression rings mike .048 after being torqued. I suspect the good thing is no water made it's way into the cyls. There is a four number code stamped into the gasket which is different to the one on the BK450 I replace it with. The package and gasket were both marked BK450. Now I have to check head gaskets before installing. Styeve (CTR)