Aero oil leak?

[wayne martin]

Hi all,
just completed my first year of Aero ownership and decided to have another go at fixing the oil leak that has plagued the car for the last few months (been very busy).
Car is a 1993 Manual Aero. 120K pretty much FSH
There is oil leaking from somewhere around the water pump area of the engine. Its filled the engine mount with oil and the aux drive belt tensioner has oil on it. The drive belts and pulley is dry. After a good run it leaves a patch of oil about the size of the back of your hand underneath the car. The oil underneath has spread to the rear wishbone mounting bush.
I have changed the O ring on the sensor on the front of the sump, replaced a vertical bolt that had fallen out (it was mentioned on this forum) and checked the tightness of the headbolts. Although my torque wrench is broken I applied reasonable force and there was no looseness. There is no obvious 'steam' of oil down the engine, but it is dripping off the oil filter and a couple of other places. The engine was de-greased a couple of months ago when I fitted a 3in downpipe.
Sorry about the long post but I've tried the search function, read as much as I could in the forum and have still drawn a blank.
Thanks in advance for any help

[Mark B]

A friend of mine's Griffin has the same problem. In this case the leak comes from a crack in the aluminium casing that covers the timing chains, starting at one of the upper bolts holes. We've tried to seal it externally, to no avail. It's annoying as it could have been cured when we replaced the chains, had we known its source.

[wayne martin]

That could be the answer, although not the one I was looking for!!!
The leak seems to be more engine block than cylinder head based, the timing chain side of the head is bone dry.
I've got the wheelarch cover off at the moment and I'm popping backwards and forwards to check things

[johncc]

If it's not on the timing cover, perhaps its coming from where the timing cover mates to the block, on the side behind the waterpump. It could also be the interface between the timing cover and the head gasket over in that corner.

[wayne martin]

do you think that re-tightening the head bolts will help?
Has anyone decided on an appropriate torque setting to tweek the bolts under these circumstances?
Seems a shame to take the head off for an oil leak