New to forum need help with an oil leak
 

I'm working on a friend of mine's college son's 1998 Camry CE w/ 2.2l engine. There's a bad oil leak underneath that I've tracked to the bottom of the plastic timing belt cover but it's coming out from an aluminum plate that's behind the plastic cover and is bolted to the front of the engine.
There's a sprocket in front of this plate, the sprocket is inside the timing belt cover, but it's not the crankshaft sprocket, it's to the upper left of the crankshaft sprocket and the timing belt goes around it.
The oil is pouring out everytime I start the motor, in fact I had to steam clean the motor just to be able to find the leak cause it's putting out so much oil.

Any idea what it might be that's leaking?? I don't normally work on toyotas just trying to help out my buddy's kid so not sure what it might be?? Any help yall could give would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks... :)

The oil pump is powered by the belt. A leaking oil pump drive shaft seal oil if bad enough can cause a high drip rate at engine idle as the oil is under pressure. The leak would be in the same area a bad water pump seal/bearing would be leaking. The pumps bolts to the engine using a formed o-ring for sealing but would be rare for this ring to leak.

The cam and crank seals can leak but as not under pressure tend to very slow leaks, not like the pump.

A search on 5SFE (engine model) oil pump should produce photos of the pump. It has a cog sprocket like the water pump and located on the opposite side about midway between cam and crank pulley.

If it is the pump drive seal, it can be replaced by taking the pump off then apart.

Seal leakage is not uncommon.