There's been a bit of oil dripping in my garage and I identified it to be dripping (but not necessarily originating) from the black metal plate at the front of my tranny... when I squeeze it against the tranny, it oozes oil onto my fingers from between the black plate and the tranny. The side of the oil pan closest to this is also a bit dirty w/ oil.

This has only been going on since I did my last oil change. It's not my filter or plug either. Also, I was above (1/8"-1/4") the operating level on my dipstick in both a hot and cold engine. Is this a coincidence? I just drained oil and it's now to the middle of the operating range. Could this have solved it?

There's also the possibility of a main gasket leak and a small possibility that it's the oil pan gasket. It also seems to be dripping only when I don't drive it for a day. However, it'll be another 4-5 days at least before anything's going to come out (cleaned the oil off my car last monday, put some white paper down, and they were just dirtied today).

Another thing I noticed is that when I start up my cold engine, the oil pressure was around 60 and didn't go down nomatter what load until about 10-15 minutes into driving it.


Any input from the Car Gods?

 

rear main seal is probably leaking. you have to drop the tranny and flywheel/flexplate to change it.

 

I don't think I can do that myself. Any idea of how much it should run in a shop?

 

make sure its not dripping from the intake manifold down to the rear main.

My car was up on the lift when we were doing the exhuast and we thought my rear main was leaking. When we finished and brought he car down- it was an intake manifold

 

What's a price estimate on all of these? There's too many pipes and crap to see if it's the intake manifold gasket... how should I go by checking to see if it is?

 

Not sure about price, its a sure thing you'll get bent over though. To tell if its your intake, reach your hand to the back of the intake, near where the EGR goes into the intake, near the seal between the block and intake manifold. If its wet, you are a winner. I just found out my intake is leaking on my TA before I put it in storage. I'll be repairing that soon, and I just received my new clutch, so when I put that in, I'll put in a new rear main just to be on the safe side. Its really not that bad to drop a transmission. The hardest part is getting the damn car high enough in the air.

 

I'll check the intake manifold later once my engine cools down a bit. Worst off, I'll bring it to some redneck hut around here that can do it for cheap but still do a quality job.

Man, I just checked my oil level on a hot engine and it's right at or a millimeter above the operation range... and this is after I took out about .75-1 quart!! I'm still hoping it was just a really high oil level that overspilled somewhere where the gaskets arent made to hold it in at that level. I guess I'll find out in a few days!

 

I just had the exact same problem. It wasn't my rear main seal or the rear of my intake manifold despite what everyone told me. It -ended up being the oil cooler to block seal. When you unscrew the oil filter it probably loosened the giant nut that holds the oil cooler in.

 

No oil cooler here

Could too much oil have ruined the main gasket?