ZUKIWORLD Online | Suzuki 4x4 Editorial and Forum
ZUKIWORLD Discussion Forum => Suzuki 4x4 Forum => Topic started by: Mike71 on January 11, 2004, 08:55:02 AM
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my car has about 86k miles on it and its starting to leak oil...its not super bad but it leaves a small puddle
im prety sure its just a gasket or seal..most likely the intake or something like that i have seen kits on calmini and stuff with an engine rebuild kit?
should i do that? how hard would that be..im just thinking that ill have the car probably alot longer now so i dont want to have to keep taking it apart to change gaskets on the engine..any help would greatly appreciated =) thank you very much
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You talking about a pinto or what?
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LOL Pinto ;D
it helps to have an idea of what you are
driving, and where it's leaking ;)
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I'm leaking oil too. It looks like its coming from between the block and the tranny. Rear main? Its rather odd that it would go. I only have 80k on it. Who knows though anything is possible.
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I'm leaking oil too. It looks like its coming from between the block and the tranny. Rear main? Its rather odd that it would go. I only have 80k on it. Who knows though anything is possible.
A real common leak is the o-ring that seals the distributor housing to the head. It'll run down the back of the engine and sometimes look like a rear main leak. I'd say check there first. This is on the 8-valve engines (1.3 and 1.6).
HTH -Eric
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i have the 16 valve motor in my tracker. I wish it was that. Any other suggestions? Andrew
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My Sidekick never leaked any oil for 10 years until I started using Mobil 1. It's nothing major so I'm just leaving it as it is. It doesn't even leak all that much anymore.
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I wish I Coudl say the same, mine leaks pretty heavily. It sucks but what can you do. Andrew
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eh sorry i have a 91 track with the bv motor..and it seems to be leaking from the back of the motor
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Guess I'll have to wait till spring to pull the tranny and see if its the rear main.....not looking foward to that.
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A real common leak is the o-ring that seals the distributor housing to the head. It'll run down the back of the engine and sometimes look like a rear main leak. I'd say check there first. This is on the 8-valve engines (1.3 and 1.6).
HTH -Eric
Ya that happened to me a few months back. The O ring costs around $3 from the zuki dealer. Replaced the rings and she ran as good as new.
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Glad it went well for you! Some of us 16 valvers aren't quite as fortunate
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so how do i tell if its the o ring thing? and how hard is it to fix? the car has never leaked before so id like to get it back to that otherwise itl never need another oil change lol
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I used some oil treatment (not leak stop), I forgot what it was, but it was really thick and looked like honey. It didn't stop the leak, but it did make it much better.
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Hmm, if you could figure out what it was and let me know that would be helpful. Thanks
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If your talking about the oil treatment called "Motor Honey" forget it! We used that once and lost the motor!
That crap gets hot and turns to crystals plugging up all the oil ports. That was in a 302, can't bear to think what it could do to a smaller engine. :'(
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The way I figured it was the O-ring was when I ran my finger on the underside of the distributor it got covered in oil.
Plus the bell housing was covered in oil too, because it was dripping down from the distributor.
It was pretty simple to fix. Just had to pull the distributor off and put in the new o ring. (the old one was brittle and crumbled in my hands)
Make sure you readjust the timing afterwards, because if you don’t put the distributor back on in the exact same position it will throw the timing out.
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Well if it's not the disty on a 16v then the only other oil leak locations I can think of back there would be the valve cover gasket, the head gasket, or the rear main.
As far as your 8v mhn3773, definitely try to establish where the leak's coming from, work your way down from the o-rings in the distributor to the valve cover gasket, possibly the rubber plugs on the 4 bolts that hold the valve cover on, then the head gasket then if it's not till you're lower on the engine than the head it's got to be either your rear main or pan gasket.
Valve cover's easy enough,
Head gasket sucks to do on any vehicle but it's probably the least likely culprit anyway.
Most likely suspect is definitely the rear main. Gotta pull the tranny of course to do that. The rear main is in a separate piece that is bolted to the back of the block and has a couple side gaskets if memory serves me. Once you have the tranny out and the flywheel or driveplate off then you have to take off the oil pan. Finally take off the bolts around the rear main housing piece.
Clean the old gasket crap off there carefully and clean up the mating surfaces with brake cleaner and then put it back together with some good RTV or another good gasket dressing material like hylomar in just a thin film. The gasket pieces that mount the flange holding the "ring" seal will stick out below the deck that the oil pan mates to. You need to cut them off flush with a razor blade.
While you're in there you might as well check the torque on the main cap bolts. It's possible your rear main is leaking because of wear on the bearings causing the crank to move around more than it should. If you replace the rear main and it stays sealed right away but then starts leaking in a few months that's a good sign your main bearings might be worn more than they should be. (Same situation applies with rear axle seals if your axle bearings are wearing too much).
Chances are your oil pan is using RTV for it's gasket. You'll want to get the old stuff off as much as possible. There's stuff to disolve it you can get at some auto parts stores. It's not magic but it does help get the old crap off there a little bit better than just scraping. Make sure you clean it off good and then clean the whole pan with brake cleaner to get a nice clean sealing surface.
Since the oil pan bolts are spec'd to 8 lb feet of torque, do yourself a favor and get an inch pound torque wrench. To convert lb feet to inch pounds multiply the lb feet by 12. The reason you want the inch pound wrench is that most torque wrenches are horribly inaccurate at the high and low end of the range they use, 8 lb feet is way at the bottom on lb feet torque wrenches but 96 inch lbs is in the middle of the range enough you can get an accurate reading. If you don't get your oil pan bolts on just right it's a leak waiting to happen. Thankfully the RTV is a bit more forgiving than actual oil pan gaskets are. You also want to make sure the steel pan's mating flange is in good shape and not dimpled since that tends to cause leaks too.
It's not fun but like I said there are nastier rear main designs out there too.
If you're planning to do work on your rig yourself, do yourself a huge favor and pay the 90 bucks or so for a factory manual, it's so much better than either the Haynes or the Chilton books. (Especially for tracking down EFI and other electriclal problems). It also spells stuff out in more detail and you know it's specific to your rig instead of general info that covers a bunch of model years in less detail. The other nice thing is that there are usually addendums printed to factory manuals if there is an error, with Haynes and Chiltons you just have to hope they updated their book correctly and since they typically just borrow the highlights from factory books you never know.
Anyway, hope that helps ya out. Just cross your fingers and hope it's the valve cover gasket or the o-rings or the plugs on the valve cover bolts.
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wow that was helpfull reading all that thanks =)
do i buy the manuel at the suzuki dealer for my car?
also will it tell me how to check my timing incase i boger it up futsing with the dist..this is my first car so i have never had to deal with any of this stuff before the hardest thing i did before was change out the rad in my dads truck
thanks for all the info and help guys =)
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most of the venders on this board sell them,I know that hawk does.
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how would i get in contact with a vendor? are they like members of the forum ??? sry im kinda slow lol
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JUST CLICK ON THE BANNER ON TOP OF PAGE OR ON MAIN PAGE ALL LISTED.........BROWSE THEM ALL FOR FUTURE REFFERANCE ..YOU'LL KNOW WHAT THEY GOT... ;)
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ah thanks dude
ok so im gunna change the valve cover gasket tommorow my dad said thats whats most likely leaking...so is there anything i should look out for while doing this?
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Make sure you replace the little rubber plugs that are on the valve cover bolts (4 of em). They should come with your valve cover gasket. Also make sure the mating surfaces are clean first (brake cleaner on a rag and wipe em off). You'll probably have to clean the mating surface on the head a couple times, the oil always seems to get back on the mating surface at the back because of gravity and surface tension. Hit it one last time immediately before putting the valve cover back on. If you have oil on the surfaces it makes a repeat leak much more likely.
Might want to look at using the spray on gasket compound. The copper kind will work but if you can get it use the spray on hylomar since it's more oil resistant. It's a pretty easy job to replace this, just remove the air cleaner box to intake rubber tube, take off the intake tube, take off the distributor cap and swing the plug wires out of the way then pull the 4 bolts from the cover. Might want to look at doing a valve adjustment while you're in there if you have a feeler gauge. The specs for a cold adjustment are on the emissions placard on the inside of the hood since I don't have em offhand.
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Good info, Z3bra.
If you're down there with the transmission off, I think it would be a good idea to go ahead and replace the clutch. It's fairly cheap and saves you from having to do it in the not-too-distant future. One other small point - make sure any seal surface that has motion against it has a thin coating of engine oil when you put it back together. NOT the surface that mates to the block, but the surface that faces the crankshaft. Put the seal in, then dip your finger in oil and rub it on the inner surface. I forgot to do that once on the front seal of an older BMW motorcycle and had to redo the job not long aferwards.
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I usually just go right for synthetic grease instead of just oil on the contact surface, but either one works. Also using some RTV or hylomar on the outside diameter of the seal that contacts the block isn't a bad idea either to help seal it just a smidge better. A very light coating is all it needs as it's a pretty tight fit to begin with in most cases. Again, keep contact surfaces as clean as possible before putting the gasket/seal in on any install.
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thanks for all the info guys =) got it in and done in a hr or so
luckily i dont have to drop the trans just yet..but the cars does have 85k miles on it with the original clutch..i also learned to drive manuel with this clutch =) so im sure itl be needing one sooner or later lol
thanks again guys