Greetings everyone,

Just a brief progress report to say that tightening the 4 bolts on my oil
pump face plate to squeeze that gasket in a bit seems to have stopped the
minor oil leak. After a few days of driving I notice no leaks. The top two
bolts were very difficult to get at and without the special tool I made with
the 10 degree bend in the open end 13 mm wrench to give me a little more
grab I could not have done any tightening at all.

Today I removed the oil with the Marvel Mystery oil added after 700 miles
and switched to Mobil one synthetic 15W50 oil with a stock filter. The next
test will be to see if the synthetic oil leaks anywhere and if it makes a
difference in MPG.

That synthetic oil is surely slippery stuff. I had to wash my hands three
times to get all of it cleaned off my hands.

At my next oil change and after an oil analysis from www.oillab.com I will
switch to the Trasko oil filter system and do another oil analysis.

William Polowniak
1989 Vanagon GL
1988 Mercedes 300 SE