Gas/Oil leak

[SR20Fastback]

Alright the other day I noticed Im leaking gas from the rear right fender area... I also knew I had an oil leak but I was told most likely it was my oil pan gasket. They said it was a possibibilty of my pcv valve. I also found out that my car is emmitting a good amount of black smoke (running rich) so I put 2 and 2 together and came up with my pcv valve being broken.

Until yesterday when my friend Kyle pointed out where the leaking gas was coming from.... we put cardboard under my car and found out that it was dripping oil with gas mixed into it.

Im getting kinda worried anyone know what or where exactly the leak might be and what would cause the oil and gas to mix back there by the tank?

[gh6o6]

the 3 things i could possibly think of is that its mixing in the engine bay somewhere and just making its way back and dripping there or its a mix of differential oil and gas or its not oil, but grease mixed with gas so you just think its oil

then again i am in no way a profession ar quatified to make assesments of any kind so basically what im saying is that im guessing <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/hehe.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':hehe:'>

have you looked to see where its comming from in the back?
its always good to crall under the car and see what looks "wet" and then clean it off and pinpoint the place its dripping from then its a lot easier to figure out the problem

[SR20Fastback]

Alright I took a quick peek under there on my way to the store a little bit ago. I think its coming from the tank at the place where it overlaps where the top meets the botom. Its wet there and the area surrounding is very very black. Im not sure what the black stuff is though.

[gh6o6]

if there isnt any thing else, its probley just gas, dirt, grease - that kind of stuff
it sounds like thew weld on the tank is bad so im my opinion you have a couple of options
1. patch of some sort - i wouldent suggest this since gas is a very dangerous thing to screw around with
2. run tank almost dry, take it out, dump the rest, and have it welded
3. Buy a whole new gas tank

keep in mind, it can be dripping down from somewhere else and just appear to be at the weld

this is something very important to fix and you should have it fixed as soon as humanly possible. be extremly careful until you get it fixed - if it catches fire your car can make a big boom

[SR20Fastback]

haha yeah pretty serious stuff. Im gonna have it looked at tomorrow and see if they can do anything for me. Car is starting to get expensive, first the starter now this.

[Yosho]

Is the black stuff you're talking about the anti-corrosive stuff that a lot of cars get their underbody sprayed with? Often, it can look like really really thick oil when it's wet. Almost like roofing tar. I don't know what state you bought the car from, but that stuff is common on cars in states where it snows... or even on all cars of a specific brand (my Civic has that and it was sold new to me in Florida). If you were to use a solvent (like gas) it could easily melt the underbody spray... and then if you wiped it away or it drained off... it would look a LOT like Oil. That's what I "think" you're seeing.

As for gas leaking... if it's leaking from your right rear fender then I would suggest it might be part of the ventalation system for the tank that's the cause.

Last but not least... before you suspect the Oil pan gasket (something that doesn't fail that often)... I'd look at 2 things that fail quite a bit more. The Front Crank seal and the Oil Pressure Switch/Sensor. It's probably leaking from one of those and it just "looks" like it's coming from the oil pan.
Without knowing more about your car, my money's on the OPS (An easy fix if that's all it is).

Hope this helps...

[Yosho]

Ok, I'm still interested....

What did they find out when you had it looked at?