Oil leaking everywhere

[cseger1]

Thanks for anyone with the patience to even read my threads anymore. I think the fix for this truck is 5lbs. of TNT. And yet I push on.

So here's today's quandary:

There is a lot of oil leaking out of this truck. 1qt. per 200 Mi. I feel like a rolling superfund site. I park on a tarp and am actually dripping enough to recycle it. The main culprit is the recently famous oil pump line which I'll be sending to a hose shop as recommended. yesterday I replaced the valve cover seal and stopped that leak but there is still a lot of oil coming from the upper rear portion of the engine. Is the vapor seperator a good plcae for a leak to pop up? Is there an O ring or something to replace on it?

[asavage]

Off the top of my head, and excluding the VC gasket, possible oil leak points include:

• Camshaft and oil galley rear plugs (under flywheel), not very likely but possible
• Oil pressure switch (behind and below oil cooler, right side)
• Oil cooler o-rings
  

Fix the vacuum pump oil feel line first, use some cleaner (I use Castrol SuperClean, $9/gal, plus a "utility" squirt bottle and a cheap, nylon parts cleaning brush), and just watch it while rev'ing it up. As much as you're leaking, any leak that remains will be easy to spot -- IF you clean off the engine first! Trying to find an oil leak on a wet engine is miserable.

[cseger1]

You're telling me. I spent an hour under the truck today with a paint scraper trying to get the oil/dirt mixture off. I got huge piles of "tar". I am going to the car wash with a can of cleaner next.

[asavage]

Around here, the car washes work well enough that I don't take cleaner with me. I own a pressure washer, but I like to leave the crap at someone else's place

After I've removed the big stuff at the car wash, I do the detailed cleaning at home. Well, at work.

BTW, don't use the "Engine Degreaser" option at the car wash, it's usually a waste of money. If you don't get hot, susdy water at high pressure from the "Soap" function, find another car wash. There are plenty of bad ones. Sometimes you have to hunt for a good one.

[REDNECK]

The best de-greaser to buy comes from FORD......i've been in the trade a long time and it's the best so far, and it'll clean the worst motor off! spotless

[TooManyIdeas]

EZ-OFF Oven Cleaner

[pbknowles]

The vapor separator has a square section rubber o-ring that seals it to the block, could leak there, but on mine the seam where the separator was assembled leaked too. It is built like a tin soup can. It has a rolled and crimped joint where the body proper is joined to the back plate, and this joint originally had some kind of sealer in it. On mine the sealer was dried out and it was drooling from this seam. I just cleaned it up real good and smeared a layer of silicone around the outside, no more leak.

[asavage]

EZ-OFF Oven Cleaner

Nope, that'll take off paint, and will also corrode any aluminum parts. Stay away from oven cleaner, it's too hard on paint, plating, and aluminum.

[ffdjm]

Be careful of pressure washing engines. It's all too easy to splash water into electrical parts, where it causes corrosion and failure. For removing of oil I use white gas (Coleman fuel) in a garden sprayer. Kerosene works as well but takes a while to evaporate. Don't use pump gas. The stuff is full of benzene which is a carcinogen. This won't remove other forms of dirt. For that scrubbing with a brush and degreaser mixed with solvent followed by water rinse is most effective.

Douglas

[philip]

Be careful of pressure washing engines. It's all too easy to splash water into electrical parts, where it causes corrosion and failure. For removing of oil I use white gas (Coleman fuel) in a garden sprayer. Kerosene works as well but takes a while to evaporate. Don't use pump gas. The stuff is full of benzene which is a carcinogen. This won't remove other forms of dirt. For that scrubbing with a brush and degreaser mixed with solvent followed by water rinse is most effective.

Douglas

This really annoys me.

NO VOLITILE organic cleaners where electrical sparks or strong magnetic fields are generated. And you certainly don't need kerosene or ANY "fuel" laying on an engine... even a diesel. Worried about water corrosion? How about your solvents getting into alternator, starter, IPC motor bearings?

You worry about carcinogens ... how about where all that dirty "fuel" you washed off headed to? COMMUNITY ground water.

There are aerosol engine cleaners. At industry levels, VOC solvents have been replaced by citrus and other low polluting formulations. Yeah they don't work as fast but ... I like cleaner water.

Rant over.

[asavage]

I use high pressure water everywhere. It's seldom a problem with electrical parts. In particular, you can soak alternators. As long as you don't store the vehicle in a wet climate, the water is by-and-large going to evaporate.

Up here in the Great Pacific NorthWet, we know corrosion. I'm not washing my engines every week, I work hard to get 'em clean once, then I can rinse them off every few months to keep 'em that way.

Crud I wash off is crud that won't attach itself to me when I have to work on it, and oil + rubber parts = short life.

I hate oil leaks and dead cylinders. Oil burning doesn't bother me as much.

OTOH, oil all over a diesel is pretty much only a fire hazard. On a gasser, it's a much bigger deal, with all the sensors, hoses, and high voltage trying to get out.