The oil is either coming from the front of the oil pan, or the sides of the timing cover and running down. I cant really tell. How much work is involved with each fix?

 

You will have to lift the engine for about 2.5 inch to take out the oil pan. About 2 hours (need to remove engine mounts to do that)...

To replace timing cover gasket you will have to remove radiator, water pump, balancer, opti...a lot of work...if you know what to do and have all needed tools (balancer pulley) should take less than 5 hours. But if you don’t you can mess up your opti (leak from water pump), and it will take whole weekend...

I think that your leak is in the bottom of the timing cover (where the oil pan mets the cover). You will need to replace the oil pan gasket for that...It can get real messy!!!
Sebastian
ps. Before you do anything, make sure where is the leak!!!!

 

Is there a temproary fix that i can do, because i go back to college tomorrow and do not have much time. I dont drive my car too much up there and it is only a 45 min drive so i can come home on the first weekend i get.

 

Temporary fix ...sure but 5 qt of oil and add one quart every 10 minutes of driving (or if needed). Most of the time oil leaks are very small (less than 1qt for every 3000 miles), so you don’t have to repair it immediately. How big is your leak??? If not that big don’t worry. But you have to check if the leak increases while driving the car.
Sebastian
ps. Duck tape is always good solution

 

From driving the car, the leak has increased. But it is not that bad. When i changed the oil i also put in a thicker oil. It slowed the leak a little. thanks for the help.

 

If you do the timing cover, you will also need to drop the front of the pan down and work carefully so you don't rip the oil pan gasket when removing the timing cover. The timing cover goes on first and then the pan seals to it.

 

mines doing the same thing, whatever you do, DO IT YOURSELF a shop will want close to $1k to do it.

 

1k!!! WTF. Is it really that big of a job?

 

A grand?! The local performance shop here in Waco will do it for like $150 + gasket of course. It is always cheaper to do it yourself...and if you've ever raised your engine you'll see that it's not that tough to do with a ramp, jack, and a heavy block of wood...

 

What all would i have to do in order to jack up the motor? I am going to do this on thursday morning and i just want to know everything before hand. I also want to know what to expect.

 

You can expect lots of oil on your face, hands, ect You will need jack, and big block of wood (like someone said before). This is not that hard. So first remove all oil from oil pan Then remove all screws that holds oil pan, so the oil pan will be loose...After that than jack up the motor a little (use harmonic balancer for that), so you can remove bolts that hold motor with motor mounts (2 big bolts)...Jack up the motor Inch by inch till the you can remove oil pan...Take the oil pan out, clean it, put some RTV silicone on it (so the gasket will stay in place) and put new gasket. Install the oil pan; make sure that gasket is properly installed. Lower the motor a bit, so you can put motor mounts bolts back in place, and you are done...
Sebastian

 

first off to get you buy, you can use some brake cleaner to clean the area, and squirt silicone on the area, it's ghetto, but it'll work for a little while.

if it's the timing cover I would reccomend you replace the seals for the water pump drive shaft, the crank and the opti drive.

the fel pro timing cover kit should have all those gaskets in it and you can remove them with a screw driver and install them with a pvc tube or a socket. I would also reccomend getting the fel pro oil pan gasket, it's a very nice peace, and you don't use silicone on it. has some nice install pins that make the job easier.

basically this will entail removing the crank pulley, the hub, the water pump, the opti, the oil cooler (if applicable) to get the oil pan bolts, and the timing cover itself, you can reuse all these bolts. this would be a nice time to replace the timing chain with at least a stock replacement as well.
You can get away with replacing the seal without jacking up the motor but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort and you run a heavy risk of getting old gasket material in the pan, which is not good.
It'll take you a soild day to do it and other than a three claw puller and some razor blades to scrape off old gasket you don't need anything other than basic hand tools , the already mentioned brake cleaner is good at removing oil and would be nice to have as well.

You should be able to get out of the whole ordeal for around $100 and most likely less.


For the guy that says a shop will do it for $150 plus gaskets, I wouldn't want someone that would do it that cheap messing with my car and I'd feel guilty only paying somebody that price for the hook up if they were a friend as it's a good chunk of work, the typical price I've seen quoted by people all over the U.S. is around a grand and sometimes as high as $1500 so you will be saving yourself a lot of money. Expect to spend a solid day doing this

 

They wanted $150 to change the oil pan gasket, not the timing chain cover gasket....