Just yesterday I posted below about a simple "fun" issue... (Sound if my new ZZP downpipe)... Minutes after posting I decided to see just how fast my 03 would go... HUGE MISTAKE! I blew something... Oil is coming out of what appears to be the lowest pulley... Forgive me but I'm no mechanic. All I can say is my belt is wet with oil and so is some of the accessories. Also dealing with a bad tap when motor cold (lifters?) but that's a different issue. Last night a friend changed my oil because the other day when we had the cat installed the shop added who knows what to address tap issue... Problem was... Appeared to be at least a quart over full... Had I of known that maybe I wouldn't have raced motor! So we changed oil and sprayed pulleys, belt and other areas with brake cleaner to try and isolate leak. Came out this morning to a least a half quart in driveway and after start up, engine wet with oil.. Pretty certain it's that lower pulley... The largest one... Oil seems to be coming from there... What is it? Expensive repair? Car has 120k with tapping until up to temp... One last note.. Heard grinding sound... Narrowed it down to the pulley tensioner? It stopped grinding now squeaks... Please help!

 

In regards to the squeaky pulley tensioner... Can I get away with just replacing the actual bearing pulley that the belt rides on or does that entire assembly need to be replaced?

 

The tensioner more then likely you can change the pulley itself (I've done that on a couple), but you need to isolate the pulley as the problem. Slide the belt off and move it by hand. Normally it will either make noise (even at low speed), or you will feel an issue in it's rotation, or check for play. The pulley is cheap/easy.

Now, the big pulley down below is the crank pulley. To determine expense for the oil leak repair, depends on where it's coming from. First, I'm not so sure I'd use brake cleaner on those areas (I believe it cause harm to some of the materials around there). Buy an engine degreaser in the future and follow the directions.

Now, first, can you identify that it's oil (not trans, power steering or coolant). If it's oil, my first guess is the oil pressure switch. Cheap/easy to change. Get the car in the air, pull the passenger side wheel and it's pretty much right there. If it's leaking, someone could start the car and the other watch the oil pressure switch.

Hope that helps.

 

Wow! I'm sorry to say but if I am reading this post correctly, you are leaking oil from your Harmonic Balancer. The Big one on the bottom of the engine that you can't turn by hand with the belt removed.
This could be a leak in the Front main seal, your Oil Pan gasket, Timing Chain Cover gasket.
Are you sure its oil and not power steering fluid! You are going to have to put the car up, Clean the area, let it dry, then run the car and look to se where the leak is actually coming from.
Overfilling the oil pan would not cause this. No Oil could but if it was leaking then that's not the case either.


Just from my experience, If you Raced your engine to hi rpm and that is when this started then it is more than likely a main seal. But please do not take my word for this one. Have the car Professional Checked. This is not one you want to get wrong cause it could be a very expensive mistake!!!!!

 

Wow! Now I'm scared... Yes, it's definitely oil and lots of it. Since I haven't lifted the car yet, my best guess is or what I can see from looking at the top going down that the leak seems to be coming from behind that large pulley at the very bottom. Hopefully it's something simple but in def losing a lot of oil. I agree that the break cleaner idea was a bad move but my idiot boss said that was fine. Hope Jason is right and it's the oil pressure switch and not the crank pulley or something else... Yieks!

 

Make sure you aren't just losing oil out of the oil filter since you just changed the oil. It does sit in the area.

 

Will double check chib but even before we changed oil yesterday there was leakage everywhere. Not this bad... Old oil must've been holding back cause the new oil flows out like water.

 

Sometimes the old gasket from the oil filter stays on, and people don't notice it and put the new oil filter on top of the old gasket.

Not saying it's definitely the case, but just double-check it before you assume the worst haha

 

hey guys... Now I'm almost 80% certain it's coolant... Now what?? What's down there that would saturate entire lower engine and will it soaking the belt explain the slipping sound?

 

Oil will be slick and black/brown. Coolant will be orange. Not sut how you could mix the two up. If its coolant id guess water pump or coolant elbows based on leak location.