Hello! I'm a newb... I recently purchased a 240 Wagon on the cheap. It's been making a strange whining noise I hope someone can help me pin down. Kind of a long story: I've been keeping my eye on a leak from the front cam seal since I bought the car about 2 weeks ago. While driving the other day, I noticed the temp going slightly up and decided to check the oil. The stick didn't show that oil was low, but I added half a quart anyway figuring it had lost that much from the leak. At that point, I had a bit of trouble getting the oil cap back on, it didn't seem to want to sit properly. I was rushed and forced it down and drove off. After driving about 20 minutes, I thought I caught a whiff of burning oil and pulled over. It turns out that someone had put a "homemade" seal on the cap and it had warped, so the cap wasn't sitting flush. Oil had sprayed everywhere inside the engine. I immediately checked the oil level, which was still within normal range, but I dropped a quart in to be safe. I pulled out the bogus seal and left the original seal under it, which seemed fine. I drove home about another 30 minutes. Since then, every time I drive the car, I notice a subtle "whine" after 5-10 minutes of warm up. The whine persists when in neutral and goes higher and lower when I rev the engine. It's not very loud, you can't hear it over the radio, but it's definitely not normal. I was wondering if it was possibly an oil pump (maybe the oil is still low and it's straining to pull oil and keep pressure) or something worse. Any ideas? I don't have much money to put into this thing at the moment, but I really need basic transportation for a few weeks at least.
