BIG Oil Leak Options

[Fastbird]

Ok guys, time to fix this. I've had a LARGE oil leak on my Celi for quite some time now. It's odd though, because I can't find it! Here's things I've just checked again:

Pulled the Distributor, no leak, no sign of leaking, O-Ring is fine, inside is dry.
Valve cover has residue along back side, but it's NOT the leak as the residue is dry.

The only things I can think of are it being either the oil pan gasket, head gasket, or the rear main.

My problem in tracking it down is that I have all the undershields off of the car and it's blowing the oil everywhere. Around the front and back of the motor, up on top of the tranny, ect. I'm leaning on the oil pan gasket right now because there's a LOT of residue along the pan rails and some cracked silicone in spots, but the oil on top of the tranny leads me to think otherwise. Good news is that I'm pulling the pan right now to have a 1/8 NPT bung welded in to relocate my oil temp sensor.

Just throwing a feeler out there, seeing if anyone has any other ideas..........as I'm stumped on this one. I know the distributor o-ring is notorious for leaking, but trust me when I say there is ZERO evidence of a leak there and I've thoroughly inspected it today and the seal is fine.

[CaliJeff]

I can't say for certain cuz i aint there, but What i do is i wipe EVERYTHING down, no oil or anything, then start it up briefly. The way u r making it sound, 2-3 seconds will do fine. Then get back underneath and take a look. But yeh, cheack head gasket, oil pan, crack in your engine block, rear main, if ur a manual then the tranny connections as well, etc.

PS just make sure u got oil in the engine before u start it.

[Fastbird]

I can't say for certain cuz i aint there, but What i do is i wipe EVERYTHING down, no oil or anything, then start it up briefly. The way u r making it sound, 2-3 seconds will do fine. Then get back underneath and take a look. But yeh, cheack head gasket, oil pan, crack in your engine block, rear main, if ur a manual then the tranny connections as well, etc.

PS just make sure u got oil in the engine before u start it.

Yeah, tried that, problem is that with lines, hoses, and wiring everywhere, it's really impossible to tell. It's coming from the left hand side (in the MR2 world would be the rear of the motor near the tranny connection) but I can't pinpoint it. I've had the shied off (already got the pan off and scraped both pan and block) and the back of the flywheel is dry with only a hint of residue, so I doubt the problem is the rear main. I hate to say it but I am leaning towards the head due to how high the oil residue everywhere is and that the wettest parts are on the top of the transmission. I really DON'T want to have to pull all this apart............especially since this just became a primary driver.

[Batman722]

I'm thinking rear main...

[Fastbird]

Nope, at least not that I can tell. Had the cover shield off, flywheel was dry. Here's a couple of pics showing how it's pooling on top of the tranny:

[Tigawoods]

sounds like what i have but alot worse. i believe mine is coming from the rear main. Get a UV water kit from a local NAPA store, clean everything underneath and put the UV water in the oil, then take the UV light that comes with the kit and see where the trail is coming from

[vile_v]

If your is getting caught onto the engine under covers, it could possibly be your oil pump seal. I didn't even know mine was leaking until i removed my front bumper with the under covers. I left my car sitting for about a day and next thing i knew there was a small puddle, it gradually got worst. I would say about a quarter liter in less than a week. Good luck, hope its not something major!

[Fastbird]

See that's the odd thing about mine. It ONLY leaks when the car has been running. It's been parked in the garage for almost a month and there's ZERO new puddling on the ground (I removed my drip pan from under the car about 3 weeks ago). But, if i've been driving it, drip drip drip. I can drive it 20 minutes to work and in the rain, when walking across the parking lot, I can see a good solid drip on the wet pavement every 20 feet or so from the pattern I drove crawling through the lot.

[lagos]

You could be leaking from the head gasket oil drain back. The stock head gasket has these copper rings to help seal the oil out, that can go bad over time...at least I've heard people complain about it with the 3s.

However...I don't think it would cause that fast of an oil leak. I would guess the rear main seal is gone, but who knows.

Your best bet is to go to nappa, and buy some UV dye. It costs about 5 bucks. Pour it into your oil, drive around, and then use a black light. It will show you exactly where the leak is coming from.

How often do you have to top off your engine oil?

[Fastbird]

That's the weirdest part. It really doesn't go through that much. Maybe 1.5 QT every oil chance (3-4K miles). It acts like a huge leak but doesn't really leak anything major. And the tranny is good, I've crawled all over that thing.

[lagos]

If your loosing 1.5qt per oil change, then I doubt this is oil that your seeing. I loose about the same amount and have no leaks on the ground (its just the nature of a turbo car).
I would look into your power steering pump, or the tranny oil.

Get that uv dye.

[Fastbird]

Next time I work I'm going to pick it up, pretty sure we carry it at Auto Zone.

The leak isn't coming from that side of the motor where the oil pump, ps pump, and accessories are. It's ALL coming from the drivers side of things which to my knowledge there isn't much there.

Anyone have a pic of the 3S-GTE head gasket and how it's oriented on the motor? I want to see where this potential leak causing drainback orifice is.

[lagos]

As you can see, the oil passages are pretty much on the back of the motor. So if you have a leak there, it would probably be on the back of the motor, but who knows.

When buying the UV dye, make sure that your only buying dye and not dye with stop leak. It comes in a very small bottle and after trying all the local stores, Nappa was the only one that carried just the dye. The rest of them were mixed with stop leak crap that will totally clog your oil passages.

This post has been edited by lagos: Jul 25, 2008 - 1:28 PM

[Fastbird]

Looks like I got it over the weekend. It's looking VERY much like it was the oil pan gasket.....I mean RTV seal.

I got the new pan on and put some miles on the car yesterday and had two NEW leaks. One is either the fitting I had mounted in the pan, or oil getting past the temp sensor threads (even though I used teflon tape). The other....I found last night.......is a NASTY split in my oil drain hose from the turbo, which fortunately is right at the hard tube, so it's just a pinhole leak. Duct Tape FTW for a temp fix there. JB Weld around the new sensor fitting on the pan, and RTV around the head of the sensor should cure the rest of it.

Reason I say this is after a 30+ minute drive in the heat of day yesterday, I found one tiny spot to the left of the pan that was blow around from the front, and a 6" wide puddle directly under the sensor on the right side of the pan with residue coming off the sensor and nowhere else.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

[Fastbird]

Update: Now I KNOW I got it. After a little more exploration last night, the ONLY leak I now have is a small one from the front of the oil pan gasket. Just need to snug up the bolts some and maybe put a bead of RTV across the front of the pan at the gasket. That cracked hose for the oil return may not be cracked all the way through, and the RTV job I gave the new temp sensor bung did it's job remarkably.

[DEATH]

Update: Now I KNOW I got it. After a little more exploration last night, the ONLY leak I now have is a small one from the front of the oil pan gasket. Just need to snug up the bolts some and maybe put a bead of RTV across the front of the pan at the gasket. That cracked hose for the oil return may not be cracked all the way through, and the RTV job I gave the new temp sensor bung did it's job remarkably.

RTV or JB Weld? The reason why I ask is here at our machine shop we use the JB weld over some critical seals as a further precaution against leakage. Works great - let it set up over a welded seal that already should not leak for at least 24hrs and it'll for sure never leak. Similar heat requirements, material, bung types etc.
That should fix you up permanantly. I'd go ahead and replace the return line as well just on GP's if you think it might be leaking or will in the future.
Hope this helps.

[Fastbird]

Yeah, I'm going to replace that return line, that's a definite. Just wanted to trace down the leaks first.

I thought about doing the JB Weld, but I was on a short time table and didn't have time to let it sit and cure.

This post has been edited by Fastbird: Jul 30, 2008 - 1:20 PM

[trdproven]

I have a leak too very small though. I changed the head gasket and it did get better. It is still leaking though but my oil still remains full by the next oil change so I don't worry about it. I'm thinking its coming from the distributor not sure where else. Its not the oil pan because it is dry. It has to be leaking from somewhere but dunno. It's so small to tell I can't find a puddle or a trail.

[hurley97]

Nope, at least not that I can tell. Had the cover shield off, flywheel was dry. Here's a couple of pics showing how it's pooling on top of the tranny:

this may sound crazy but just clean that up and try this... tighten your reverse light switch.

you may have other leaks too, I haven't read through everything, but I've always had a little pool of something right there on top of the tranny and could never figure it out. We put the new motor in and I still had the same problem. Through a suggestion of someone I work with I put some sealer around the reverse light switch and tightened it and my puddle has been gone ever since.

This post has been edited by hurley97: Aug 1, 2008 - 7:22 PM

[hurley97]

That's the weirdest part. It really doesn't go through that much. Maybe 1.5 QT every oil chance (3-4K miles). It acts like a huge leak but doesn't really leak anything major. And the tranny is good, I've crawled all over that thing.

and that is considered normal oil consumption for Toyota's