Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Oil furnace - oil leak around pump

I smelled oil when the furnace was running today. I went down & opened it up, and sure enough there's oil leaking from around the pump.

It looks like it may have been leaking for a few days/weeks, and maybe today got a little worse. I dried up what was laying under the pump.

The air filter was D-I-R-T-Y!!! I haven't changed it this winter. I know that's wrong--it slipped my mind. I changed that while I was in there.

Is there any chance that the dirty air filter may have contributed to (or caused) the leak? Maybe it made the furnace work harder... more pressure or something that pushed the oil out around the seals?

I ran it once since I cleaned it up, and didn't see or smell any more leakage. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks,

Brian

The air filter is unrelated to the leak at the burner. It is usually tough to pinpoint the source of an oil leak at the burner because the fan will sling it all over the place. If you dried it off, just keep an eye on it and try to see where the leak comes from.

Ken

You should have it checked ASAP. It could be caused from a cracked heat exchanger. If it is cracked it could be causeing the nozzle to foul up and oil to run back down the blastube. Or it could be a bad seal in the pump that could cause oil to saturate the transformer. None of these things are good.

I am going to disagree with Ken on the air filter. If the filter was plugged, the furnace would be running a lot hotter than normal. On some furnaces this can cause the nozzle to drip slightly after the burner shuts off & the oil can run back down the the air tube & it would appear to be a leak. Clean up the oil, dry off the burner & keep an eye on things for a while.