2012 LR4 - Need Help With Valve Cover Gasket Bolt / Oil Leak! **White Smoke From Engine Under Hood - Not Overheating**

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Elohite

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2012 LR4 - White Smoke From Engine Under Hood - Not Overheating (Oil Leak?)

Good Afternoon All,

I know any smoke from the engine is not a good sign and am having trouble diagnosing this. On occasion the vehicle will give off white smoke from under the hood and the vehicle is not overheating. It will give off a burned plastic type smell, nothing sweet so I do not believe it is coolant. This does not happen all the time just occasionally. I was able to get one instance on video and it seems the smoke was mainly coming from the driver side rear of the engine near the A/C lines as shown in the video. I believe it may be from a oil leak somewhere and the smoke is from the oil being burned off hot engine components but I am not certain. Does anyone have an idea of what this may be or what I should check?

Youtube video of smoke:

Part of me that thinks its a oil leak is that I have had a few drops on my driveway. It seems to be dropping from the passenger side front right near the control arm bushing. I do not believe it is the actual oil filled bushing leaking because the undertray nearby is a bit oil soaked. Picture below:

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jlglr4

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Valve cover is the first thing that comes to mind in that video you posted. Oil dripping down onto the manifold maybe. But an oil leak from the drivers side valve cover would not be flowing to the passenger side control arm. You might have valve cover leaks on both sides. Valve cover leaks seem to be pretty common on these cars.

You need to pull out that rubber insulation on the side of the engine to see better. Or, if you have a borescope, you might be able to get a peek at the edge of the valve cover to see if its wet.
 

jlach993

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Hmm i did an oil change once and apparently the cheap off brand filter from Korea i used that one time didn’t “snap” into the oil filter cover. When i tightened it down apparently it didn’t seat properly. That caused a leak that i didn’t catch for a few weeks until it started leaking down onto the manifold and smoke. I agree with jlglr4 as well. It’s more likely a valve cover gasket leak.

Update: yikes sorry i just watched your video afterwards. Oil filter housing leaking is probably not your problem. Thats on the other side of the engine. It would smoke on the passenger side of the engine. Not the drivers.
 

Elohite

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I need help finding this bolt / part number!

So when I was changing out my air springs today I believe I found the source of my white smoke / oil leak. While working on the passenger side, which is where I happen to have the leak at the bottom from the pics above, I removed a miniature heat shield and I believe this provided a better view and some access to a portion of the valve cover gasket (If I am not mistaken). From the looks of it there is some oil leaking from the rear of the valve cover gasket and that is dropping onto the exhaust manifold (which is quite black as you can see from the pictures) and this is causing the white smoke as the oil is burned off when the exhaust manifold gets hot after driving.

I wiped the area a little to take some pictures and from what I can tell at there is a bolt missing at the rear near the source of the oil leak. I am not certain if this missing bolt is the cause of the leak but I am needing some assistance in determining the part number so I can replace this missing bolt as a first step. I tried looking up some diagrams to figure this out without luck and not too sure how to go about finding the right bolt. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

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LJLR

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Try cleaning things with a thorough dose of simple green and then gently hose things down. Be careful not to get the electronics wet, best to keep the simple green and water below the top side. That may give you a better idea as to the source of the oil leak. It may also delay the necessity of changing the valve cover gaskets. As I understand it, the valve covers gaskets are a time-consuming job. Good luck. Phil
 

LR4Slavo

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I had the same issue with my truck, no smoke but a small pool of oil on the ground.

To identify it I was able to get under either the car with the bottom guard removed, identify that the back of the cylinder heads were moist. My second confirmation was via the top, reaching the back corner of where the valve cover meets the head and my gloves did have oil on them. I was able to get in with a shorty 10mm 1/4" socket and mini wrench to tighten it down as much as I could.

Beware: this takes a lot of patience as I could only get the wrench to move two teeth at a time and I had to basically stand on top of the rad support to reach back there.

Mind you, my valve cover gaskets are new, if this issue suddenly presents itself on your truck, you may just have to replace the gaskets if all of the screws are tight - which is quite a bit more involved due to the removal of fuel lines, injectors and coils.
 

Jimmy Brooks

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Ive had oil in that same spot on the control arm for a while now, Ive been needing to replace that valve cover for around 25k miles now, just been too lazy. Plus its never been enough to drip on the ground or see smoke from it dripping on the manifold.
 

Elohite

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I literally just took this to the local indy Land Rover shop and got this fixed, this was above my DIY comfort level. To be honest I drove about a year and 13k miles myself knowing it had the leak.
 

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