smells like oil burning

[RustyHo88]

well, my 84 accord has been smelling more and more like it is burning oil lately. its not burning oil internally, its leaking somewhere. as i understand it, there are 3 gaskets that can leak oil... valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket, and rear main seal. since it is burning oil, i of course initially think its my valve cover, but that seems to be fine, no oil deposits near my spark plugs, and nothing near the intake manifold. my oil pan is really oily, so that gasket could be leaky, but that doesnt get hot enough to burn oil does it? that only leaves one, my rear main seal. this is the one i expect the most. whenever i change my oil, i notice a TON of oil around my oil filter. and the last few times ive changed my oil, ive noticed little discolorations on the top of my exhaust pipe just below the oil filter. could this be my problem? is my rear main seal leaking oil onto my exhaust pipe? anything else i should check?

[A2B Accord]

There are 2 other spots as well that could be leaking. Your engine has three oil seals that tend to leak over time. Tranny side, crank side, and cam seal. Its prob. your cam seal thats leaking. Change you valve cover gasket anyway and there is also some kind of dye (i think) that you can put in your oil to find the leak.

[RustyHo88]

well, i guess i could change my VCG, but i am certain thats not where its leaking. i am confused, what are the names of the three gaskets i didnt mention (tranny gasket, crank gasket, cam gasket)? and do you know where i can find this dye youre talking about? wal-mart, napa, ect.

[A2B Accord]

Seals not gaskets "seals". Your block has 2 main seals. One on each end of the crankshaft. There is also one on the cam sprocket end of the cam shaft. Thats 3 total. The one on the cam side is usually the one that wets up the whole f**kin engine bay when it goes bad. The crank seal on the tranny side is usually the one that causes the clutch 2 slip (my case at this moment). You can ask some techs about the oil dye i've never used it.

[RustyHo88]

cam seals would suck to replace though. but yea, i do have a lot of oily buildup just under my distributor and vacuum advance diaphram. so... lets just get one big list of all the possible gaskets/seals it could be. theres the valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket, tranny side crankshaft seal, pully side crankshaft seal, and cam seal. did i miss anything? dont harp on me, im still learning.