240 plagued by oil leak (storry with pics)

[Rhoad Racing]

last week was a horrible one for the 240 and myself. It started Thursday morning (just before a school final :disgust: ), I was driving down the interstate out of the blue the radio and radar detector start turning off and on speratically. shorty afterwards, the car dies sompletely. Turns out the alternator went out :huh: . But not b/c of old age, but b/c of an extremely bad oil leak above the oil pan. see below:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid108/p0ff8e0a5cc1e895ed3cb20eb6f6760e6/f9426057.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid108/p54a71006aed44e6f1747e89bf644aafc/f942606e.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid108/p0c87400d078e2a42f93bc1ab6c4eba35/f9426093.jpg

Thankfully my mom was in town and she let me drive her Denali until I got the car running again which took 4 days. After waiting for 3 days for the new Alt. to come in I finally got it in and running. But the fun didn't stop there :rolleyes: The car then started to overheat. So I replaced the T-stat and did a complete cooling system flush. Didn't help. I was dumb founded. I didn't know what was wrong. Bad rad.? Bad water pump? :confused: On top of that, the damn thing threw an engine code :mad: It ended up being a park/neutral sensor :rolleyes: easy fix.
Just in case AutoZone sold me a bad T-stat I replaced the one I just bought with another new one. And yet again, the car over heated. So I said fuck it. I just took the T-stat out and now the car runs percect. Well, a little cold, but good nontheless. Fucking AutoZone sold me bad T-stats; consecutively! Basterds.
As for the oil, I went through two bottle of GUNK degreaser and got most of it off and put some "leak stopper" than I bought at PepBoys for $5 in my oil. To my amazement, it actually worked. The car doesn't leak at all. Atleast for the time being. *fingers crossed*.

damn what a week :( 5 days of labor, bloody hands and knuckles and snorkle and flippers for 'oil swimming'

[ryan hagen]

looks like your front oil seal is out, between me and my friends we ahve 4 s13's all leaked form there, all ahve gunked up alternators, i replaced mine on my car, my friends got so bad his a/c belt slipped and got thrown off. the s14 clip i got with a ka in it had 120k 1995, it was also leaking. it more or less slowly leaks out and gunks up stuff, if your putting a new alternator in and dont want it gunked up replace the seal. kinda a bitch but its worth it.

[240Stilo]

The over heating might be due to water pump if it hasn't been replaced. I had to replace water pump around 120k....maybe more. Also had an oil leak that killed the alternator so I replaced the front oil seal and that took care of it for the most part. I still get some oil coming out but considerably less.

[Rhoad Racing]

correct me if Im wrong, but doesn't replacing the front seal mean dropping the subframe? I really don't feel like taking on such a job, but if worse comes to worse, then so be it. I'm sure me and my room could take care of it (he's got a white '89 with 250rwhp SR on Volk AV's)
And it's not over heating anymore since I took out hte T-stat. matter fact, it's running so cool, that I'm actually going to take out the Clutch fan and rewire the Electric fan (which I've already done).

[old_s13]

oh god, drop an oil pan or pull a pulley off and fix yer shit you lazy bastards....

thats some dirty shit

[ryan hagen]

to change the oil seal you gotta take out the rad, or risk smashin it up, and then take off the main pulley, after the main pulley is off there is a rubber seal right there, pry it out, and carefully install a new one, the one for a de costs $6 bucks at nissan, i m sure the e is similair in price, cheap fix for the huge problems it can cause. none of my freinds changed theirs cause they are lazy, but i like my engine bay clean, i keep a spare seal in my garage for when this one goes........

[Rhoad Racing]

thats some dirty shit

I couldn't agree more. Which is why I cleaned it up. It doesn't look nearly as bad now.

ryan hagen, the oil seal procedure doesn't seem hard at all. And as many times as I took the rad fan out this past week, I should be able to pull the Rad. in no time. thanks for help.

[ryan hagen]

the worst part is getting the pulley off, its a bitch to work on in that little space, and all the belts and shit,then making sure it all gets back together tight. but you ll like the new seal, every is nice and clean. i had to scrape so much shit off of mine,

[Rhoad Racing]

well, damn. I know what my next project is. But I have two weeks before going back to school, so I have plenty of time to tackle it.

[sideviewcivic]

yeah awhile back i had the battle of a oil leak. turns out it was a seal(previous owner had rubber sealant on it to slow the leak). not too mention mine was compounded by a failing crank pulley. cost me $979 for entire pulley system (water,oil,ps, and crank) new belts,oil pan,vc gasket,plugs and wires. that price was for shop work. not the cheapest by far, but he gave me a 2 year warranty on all things he replaced.

[240Stilo]

sideviewcivic- Yeah i'm pretty sure you got ripped off.

Rhoad Racing- It is not that hard to replace that seal. I've done it four times since I kept doing it wrong haha.

Take off the belts
Use a piece of wood to hammer out the pulley by hitting it from top and bottom.
Take off seal
Put in new one and put everything together.

[mrmephistopheles]

pics after?

[ryan hagen]

yah, its not hard, just kinda time consumeing

[sideviewcivic]

its called labor costs, cudda had bubba down the road do the same thing. but if im driving home and the shit blows, rather have the warranty. besides half of costs was labor

[twitchy]

you think thats dirty...I should show you what mine looks like right after it gets oilspray done in the spring....youckkkkkkk!

[240Stilo]

its called labor costs, cudda had bubba down the road do the same thing. but if im driving home and the shit blows, rather have the warranty. besides half of costs was labor

Well then I guess my name is bubba. But, I'm not bashing you for what you paid for it because keeping your car running is always worth every penny as long as it works.

[shayrgob240]

quick ?, I'm abut to change my oil seal and want to know if u have to take off the front cover. The FSM doesn't say so but the pictures in it suggest it.

[s13pignose]

How common is this. Reading this thread has me worried lol for my zenki. I got 116k on it now. No leaks or anything no oil anywhere. Well I didi when I first got it, but it was the sending unit. Got it replaced, absolute no leaks now that I can see.

[aznpoopy]

#1 this thread is like 2 years old

#2 shayrob - no you do not have to remove the front cover. you may have to remove the fan and shroud for clearance. otherwise, all you have to do is:

-jack up the front of the car. slacken all the accessory belts. leave the car in 5th gear, ebrake up, rear tires on the ground.
-take off the gigantic bolt on the front crank pulley using a huge socket and huger breaker bar.
-pull the crank pulley off with a pulley puller.
-use a screw driver or flip the arms on the puller and pull out the old seal.
-put in the new one.
-put everything back. don't forget to torque down the crank pulley bolt to spec and retighten all your belts.
-enjoy your new non-leaky car.

#3 pignose, it's really common. but if it's not leaking, there's no need to fix it. if you diagnosed your leak as the pressure switch and fixed it, you're fine.