Got a small oil leak (half a quart every three months) right around the front of the transmission pan, and drips off the front sway bar. Idle is ok, with I guess a VERY, VERY, SLIGHT occasional roughness/surge that I initially attributed more toward being a 95,000 mile engine. I ran a rag around the back of the intake, it came back dirty, but not soaked.

Does this sound like the infamous intake manifold leak or a bad rear main seal? It's still cold here, and I only want to take apart one (eventually).

And why does my oil smell a little like gas?

 

thats intake manifold leak. I have one too. U wanna have a lil get together and we can all fix ours together?

Quick question, what are your symptoms of this(other than leaking oil?) Does your volt guage jump around after you sit idling for a while? Is there a ticking or squeeching noise frolm the engine?

 

No other symtoms. Just leaking oil and a really dirty undercarriage.

 

Yep...the good ol intake leak. When you fix it there are many things other guys do here to help the fix. I grinded a lil line in the block with a die grinder on the rails to hold the RTV in a lil better. Some guys make cross hash marks and others dimple it. Got a pick. If you want one pm me.

 

Yeah, I figured it was the intake.
95BlackTA- No other symptoms besides a SLIGHT roughness...of course, that could be unrelated to the manifold leak. I'm waiting for the Opti to go out too.

That's a good idea, never would have thought of that. About how deep do you go? Are you actually "shaping" the mating surface (by grinding into it) or just roughening it up? What about like a medium grit sandpaper? That wouldn't affect the seal too much, but it would help the RTV stick....or maybe I am missing a more obvious point.....

 

I just used sandpaper to rough up the surface (cross hash marks as was mentioned) and I've had zero issues since the fix.