legacycentral bbs

ok ive been leaking oil from the engin now for a while so i took it down to my local shop and they said it was a valve cover gasket so i had them replace it. (this is after the j-team (jiffy lube) told me they saw a rear and front main leak and pan leak.) so now i take it home and i smell burning oil or something like that. im pretty sure its oil at least. ive been seeing new oil on the garge floor but not much. does anyone else have this problem or a burnt oil smell eminating from their car even with or without seeng oil on the floor?

I used to get that really bad first, when my front crank seal went bad and would drip on my cross-pipe, and second, when my passenger side valve cover gasket would drip on my up-pipe. Both are fixed and the smell is gone.

Where is the oil in relation to your cars engine when you park and it leaks? The front toward the belts, the sides or what?

Also check inner CV joint for torn boot. They can throw grease on the exhaust.

Steve

The smell just started on the ride home from having the valve cover gaskets replaced? And it hasn't been happening long?

If so, oil probably just spilled on the exhaust manifold during the gasket replacement. It should burn away after a short while. You can try cleaning your exhaust (when it's cool) with brake cleaner too.

well it had a verry small smell before but its worse now. i do have a bad cv axle noted by the clicking when i turn left and really hard full lock right handers. bad thing is i dont drive verry much and kinda hard to tell exactaly when it started to get bad.

also i dont park in exactly the same place every day so i cant really tell what side its form.

and when i brought it down to the shop i askd them to check everything from the rear main to the front one. and they just said it was a valve cover.

i just hope it goes away soon

Well, stick your head under the car. If there is black goo on the bottom of the exhaust manifold, its the cv (unlikely but possible). If not, pop the hood and take a look at the top of the exhaust. Any oil right below the heads is probably just spill from the valve cover being removed. Also could be the cam seal (very close to the valve cover gasket) leaking.

You could also put some paper towels underneath the car every time you park it...should help you determine if it's still leaking and where from.

I've done both my valve cover gaskets and I still have a leak from my crank seal and from my turbo oil return. All of those leaks have managed to get oil on the exhaust, but it really only smells like burning when you push the car hard and get the oil pressure and exhaust temp up.

Irregardless, I wouldn't worry about it at all. A little oil leak isn't going to cause any problems as long as you keep an eye on your oil level and keep it topped up all the time.

update. i found where on the exhaust its landing. is right were the up pipe meets the exhaust manifold on the top side facing the sky. the shop said it was some oil breather lines and one of the ones i can see is leaking oil but its the one that comes out the top front passenger valve cover. it looks like someone tried to fix it before as in it has electrical tape wraped around it. im taking the car to get the hoses replaced tomorow. i hope this fixes my problem.

I just fixed my crank seal.. Smoke and smell gone Then 2 days later my driver side cv ripped and now theres grease burning on the exhaust

If it;s not the hoses then shampoo your engine should be able to see once its clean..

i hope to god its thoes hoses. if not thers gonna be a size 12 dent in my door

I don't mean to be pessimistic, but I don't see how leaky PCV hoses could cause a really noticeable oil leak... I mean, they don't normally carry oil except for the droplets mixed in with the crankcase/head vapors.

When they replaced the valve cover gaskets, did they also replace the grommets around the bolts? If not, maybe it's leaking from one of them.

I agree with vrg3 & Matt - I can't see a PCV valve leaking a lot of oil. If it did your car would likely be running like crap.

I also had the burning oil smell and oil collecting in the same places. It went away after timing belt job, where I replaced the leaking front main crank seal. WIthout tearing it down I could not tell if it was the crank seal, oil pump, or whatever - it was coming from the timing belt cover, thats all I knew. Before I cleaned the engine it could have been coming from anywhere - oil was all over.

The smell would occur everytime I had to stop at a light or something.

The cheapo-lube place I went to once also reported an oil pan gasket and rear main seal leak. Seems they forget that oil coming out of the front of the engine will find its way down (gravity) and back (wind). I think they only record these leaks to get out of any warranty claim if your car has oil starvation issues. For them the more leaks they can claim the better.

If you hose the engine down and then keep looking regularly you should be able to identify the culprit area. The front main seal is a likely candidate I would say, as it will harden and wear with normal use.

Is you PCV system even working ? When I see oil issuing forth from all points I first check the PCV. The seals are meant to work under light vacuum, and if the whole thing is inporable, the crankcase and top end will be pressurized, and lots of oil can leak from lots of places. What happens when you pull the oil filler cap with the engine running ? lots of foul air blowing out ? If so your PCV system is not working, check all hoses versus the factory diagram for location and condition and renew the valve. If you fix that and there is still lots of pressure in the crankcase, you've got bigger problems (shot rings)

When people start monkeying around they often take hoses off or plug them, leading to trouble down the road. the taped hose doesn't sound so good.

There is a UV additive you can add to oil to find leaks. You add it to the crankcase, run the engine, then look in the dark with a black light, the oil glows brightly right where it is leaking out. I used some of this stuff to find a leak on my BMW that was driving me nuts, it was a bad oil pressure sender (oil flowing up electrical wire no less, then dripping out a foot away)