I'll bet that the oil seal on the forward balance shaft (closest to the front of the car) has popped out. Known problem. Your friendly parts store should have a special retainer to keep that baby in place. Clean everything up and replace all oil saturated belts.

 

I have an accord and I'm pretty sure what you're talking about happened to mine. It had a full timing belt job done at 90k miles and then another at 144k, it's the only reason I could see it happening again so soon at a time when it was out of warranty.

 

The seal in question is a common problem and they have a fix of a holder that bolts down to hold the seal in place. The seal is the one toward the front of the motor shown in the picture, note leak at the bottom of the seal.

 

"There's a good amount of oil coming out of where the upper and lower cover meet."

This suggests the forward balance shaft seal or camshaft seal are leaking badly.

good luck

 

On the Accord, you mention looking at engine from the top.
Suggest getting out your change a tire jack, block it, lift, insert safety block / stand
and inspect from bottom; you're about to invest effort and $.

Have hard time visualizing a seal catastrophically failing vs. growing leak over time,
whereas drain plug can drop out w/o notice - and did for me.

 

The seal on the balance shaft has a problem of falling out. For that reason they have devised a fix that involves a piece bolted down that goes on both sides of the seal to hold it in. The seal doesn't fail it falls out.

 

^^^ the devil is in the details and I learned one today, thanks.

 

balancer shaft seal popped out,,,,,,,,install a seal retainer once seal is replaced

 

Here is a picture of the Ballencer seal & Retainer..

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies. Sorry about the delay, I had to let the reality of the situation settle in. I'm thinking maybe I'll try to fix this thing and sell it... maybe I'd get more than simply donating it and doing a tax write off. I was thinking about getting one of the various timing belt kits with water pump since I'll already be in this area. However, I'm not sure what kinda seal I should be buying for replacement. I've had no luck searching it on my own, and I think I'm using the wrong terminology. Can anyone provide any suggestions about what words I should be typing into Google to fix this leak? Are there any cheap seals I'd want to take care of along the way? I know with my Civic, I bought an OEM kit with several belts, the water pump, timing tensioner, and several gaskets. I don't think I can afford the OEM route this time around, but maybe there's a decent package out there that includes similar things?

Thanks for the help. You guys are helping this broke man out tremendously.