Lots of Oil

I've got a 2000 taco v6 5vfze I've got....a couple leaks. The worst of which is coming near the oil filter what would be your best guess if you saw this oily mess?

 

Is the oil filter tight enough? The oil cooler is the likely culprit.

Get some engine degreaser and a round brush, spray it around the area, brush it, let it sit, and rinse well. Monitor the area and see where the oil is actually coming from. Could be higher up- valve gaskets / cam plugs / half moons and running down.

 

Sorry it took me a second to figure out image upload. Could you take a look? I won't have time to degrees till later today, But do you know of any common culprits in this vicinity? To me oil filter looks good.

 

HA.. naw dude, you gotta remove all that caked on oil before you proceed. And I told you- Either oil cooler or valve gaskets.

"oil filter looks good" did you put your hands on it and try to tighten it?

 

even if top side gaskets were replaced, theres a pretty good chance they could be leaking again. Time (and temperatures) is as big an enemy as mileage. Hot oil is some slippery stuff.

 

I did! nice and tight. just had valve gaskets done too

 

Its time for them ALL to need changing but thats prob. leaking from up top ..for years.

You gotta wash that though. Feel behind heads and see if your fingers get wet oil

 

That doesn't mean they were done right. If they just did the gaskets without the cam plugs and half moons, those are also potential sources.

Bottom line, you gotta clean up that mess before you diagnose this further, otherwise you're just guessing.

 

They did all of these and had a great mechanic from the dealer look and saw no oil coming from any of the above, but yes, I will clean

 

Yeah definitely gonna have to clean it up with some degreaser / brake cleaner and then run it to see where the leak is actually coming from. There is too much caked on to determine the source right now.

 

sounds good

 

Keep an open mind- just because work was performed by a great mechanic doesn't mean it was done right.

 

Lots of 20 year old vehicles look like that underneath.

Clean everything up:
Wear safety glasses and start with a plastic putty knife, when you get the majority of the crud scraped off then hit it with some Simple Green, etc.

After everything is cleaned up you can check for fresh leaks, be sure to keep an eye on the oil level too.

 

yeah my leak has gotten worse and worse. I actually cleaned all of this like 7 months ago (got all the valve gaskets done) I was still leaking but nothing extreme would top off twice between oil changes but now I just lost more than a quart on a 2k mile drive definitely time to address the issue.

 

I will check myself but it was done by a good mechanic and checked for valve cover leaks by a great mechanic a few months later.

 

It may be the oil cooler and not the valve cover gasket, we can give more insight once it is cleaned.

 

Could also be the oil pan gasket or oil pump gasket, front main, rear main, etc. Or it could be built-up gunk from before the valve cover gaskets were done. If the VCGs are leaking again you might notice a smell from it burning off on the exhaust manifolds.

 

That is alot of build up in a relatively short period of time. A leak like that shouldn't be too hard to find after it's cleaned up.

Too me it doesn't look like the leak is anywhere close to the oil cooler, looks more like it's towards the front of the engine, in the area where the dip stick tube enters.

 

Not to throw a wrench in the machinery (bad pun intended) while you're doing cleanup to see where it's coming from, also look to the rear and behind the engine around the power steering rack bushings. A messy oil change or filter leaking at the gasket can blow back and petroleum products will eat the rubber bushings, giving you a completely unrelated problem. One member here said it was so bad when he removed the vertical bushing bolt it flowed out like he removed an oil plug or something.

 

I finally got around to a deep clean. Anyone know what this part is? Driver side just in front of transmission. Right in between tranny and oil filter above oil pan. Could this be a culprit for a fairly significant oil leak? Every thing below it is drenched in nasty old oil. Couldn’t find any signs of fresh oil above it, but maybe there is something literally right above it that I can’t see? The fact that it is super clean with fresh oil coming out the bottom makes it my number 1 culprit but I have no idea what it is.