Oil leaking everywhere...

Well, I've known for a while that my car has been leaking oil. I've been OK with it until this past trip to Florida. In about 1500 miles I leaked (NOT burned) over 2 quarts of oil... the underside of my car is covered and the tail end of my car is coated in an oily residue. When I park I leave dozens of little oil puddles... It's rather embarrasing and smokey at times)... When the car was in for it's right rear wheel bearing replacement I had the dealer scan for leaks. They came up with leaks in the following places (this is according to the repair bill).

Leak is coming from front engine seals, valve cover gaskets.

They quoted $599 for the oil seals (including a new timing belt) and $350 for the valve cover gaskets.

I asked what was meant by "front engine seals" as there are probably quite a few of them. They said that would include the cam seals, etc.. No further details followed.

I passed on both and bout a few more quarts of oil...

I'm not too concerned with the valve cover seals since I've replaced valve covers on BMW motorcycles (horizontal DOHC engines) and it's pretty straight forward. As for the front engine seals, is it worth $600 for the dealer to replace these or are they easy enough to do on your own? Thanks in advance.

Clarke

[Mr. Pockets]

As with all car repairs, it just depends on your level of familiarity. If you're very comfortable with working on the car (for example, if you've replaced the timing belt yourself), then you might want to tackle it. If you're not very experienced with the car, it might be worth the expense to have the dealer do it.

That'll vary from person to person, I'm sure. Some people will spend a couple weeks on a repair and be glad they saved themselves a couple hundred bucks. Others can't spare a weekend so being able to drop it off and just have it over and done with is worth it to them.

If you do decide to do the repair yourself, I can't stress enough how important a set of factory service manuals are. They seem expensive, but pay for themselves immediately.

[Earthworm]

Another good thing with doing the job yourself is that you can give the engine a good bath while everything's out.

The engine is quite shiny once all the oil/dirt is washed off.

Here's a pic I took after "scraping" all the junk off my engine:

Pic (628k)

[Ron Mummert]

Are you absolutely, positively sure the oil filter or drain plug's not loose? I went through the puddle phase for a few days 'til I found a barely hand-tightered filter. I don't think I've ever had a car that could pump out 2 quarts through any seals in just 1500 miles. Just a wild guess.

Ron.

[SVX-FF]

Clarke, I did my front oil seal the other month. It was not all that bad for the seal. the t-belt is the most important. If you do it follow the manual and make sure that the belt is on right.
$600 for a front seal job and t-belt is not that bad. What would be the warranty against leaks?
The valve cover I have heard to be a little harder. I would let the dealer do it for $350.

Steve

Tune up & oil seal

Originally posted by SVX-FF
Clarke, I did my front oil seal the other month. It was not all that bad for the seal. the t-belt is the most important. If you do it follow the manual and make sure that the belt is on right.
$600 for a front seal job and t-belt is not that bad. What would be the warranty against leaks?
The valve cover I have heard to be a little harder. I would let the dealer do it for $350.

Steve

Tune up & oil seal

Steve,

What seals did you replace? Was it just the oil pump seal or did you replace the cam seals as well? Also, what do you mean by the t-belt being most important? Do you mean getting it installed correctly? Thanks.

Clarke

[SVX-FF]

Originally posted by clarkerussell


Steve,

What seals did you replace? Was it just the oil pump seal or did you replace the cam seals as well? Also, what do you mean by the t-belt being most important? Do you mean getting it installed correctly? Thanks.

Clarke

I have replaced all but the valve covers.
left seal for crank right one for oil pump

Cam seal upper most right one. Directly above the cam sprocket. Linky to pic

Timing belt is the most important when replacing. Both cams and crank must be aligned correctly.
The first time I did not take all the slack out of the belt, missed by one tooth, the belt jumped under hard acceleration. This causes the engine to shut down 3 of the 6 cyclinders. It took me almost the whole weekend to figure it out. I missed Reading 5 because of it , I only lived about 1hr from the meet at the time. There has been no damage to the engine that I could tell.

The seals and belt are fairly cheap from www.subaruparts.com

Steve

Originally posted by SVX-FF


I have replaced all but the valve covers.
left seal for crank right one for oil pump

Cam seal upper most right one. Directly above the cam sprocket. Linky to pic

Timing belt is the most important when replacing. Both cams and crank must be aligned correctly.
The first time I did not take all the slack out of the belt, missed by one tooth, the belt jumped under hard acceleration. This causes the engine to shut down 3 of the 6 cyclinders. It took me almost the whole weekend to figure it out. I missed Reading 5 because of it , I only lived about 1hr from the meet at the time. There has been no damage to the engine that I could tell.

The seals and belt are fairly cheap from www.subaruparts.com

Steve

So how many seals are in the front of the engine? Also, if I'm going to take the time to replace the timimng belt, I might as well replace all the other items as well... Is it advisable to go ahead and replace the oil pump and water pump at the same time? Thanks.

Clarke

[ensteele]

Originally posted by clarkerussell


Is it advisable to go ahead and replace the oil pump and water pump at the same time? Thanks.

Clarke

Yes, if you are in there already, I would replace the water pump. Most every one does it at that time.

[SVX-FF]

Here is the seal list.

1. oil pump o-ring
2. oil pump crank seal
3. cam seals=2

I would use subie parts for this job.

Good luck

Steve

[SilverSpear]

Look guys i really would like to see a thread showing for example how we can change the timing belt by ourselves, gaskets, dealing with leaks... really it's crazy to pay amounts such as $300, $400..... $800 for changing timing belts and gaskets not worth that trouble to pay such labor costs!! that's a rip off in my opinion... we as a network should help one another to deal with such easy tasks... the one who began with it is Seraph with the front headlights cleaning and stuff.... what about if someone posted some documentary on how to deal with problems along with some pics!

Originally posted by SilverSpear
Look guys i really would like to see a thread showing for example how we can change the timing belt by ourselves, gaskets, dealing with leaks... really it's crazy to pay amounts such as $300, $400..... $800 for changing timing belts and gaskets not worth that trouble to pay such labor costs!! that's a rip off in my opinion... we as a network should help one another to deal with such easy tasks... the one who began with it is Seraph with the front headlights cleaning and stuff.... what about if someone posted some documentary on how to deal with problems along with some pics!

Here here! I'm quite competent under the hood of my older BMW's but the SVX is alien to me... Perhaps I just need to get the factory manual and read up on it. Does anyone have an electronic copy? Thanks.

Originally posted by clarkerussell
Does anyone have an electronic copy?

Aye. Subaru does.

http://techinfo.subaru.com/html/index.jsp

[SVX-FF]

Originally posted by clarkerussell


Here here! I'm quite competent under the hood of my older BMW's but the SVX is alien to me... Perhaps I just need to get the factory manual and read up on it. Does anyone have an electronic copy? Thanks.

I have an PDF manual that will cover most all SVX repairs. I use it often. It is very big at 18mb but if you want it shoot me a pm with a e-mail address.

Steve

[blue thunder]

I had a small engine leak going on and had Subaru replace the valve cover gaskets & grommets for 318.45 Also had the oil pan resealed for 159.00 Now I can clean the engine

Mike