Burning oil

Hey guys, my 2004 Prerunner has about 250,000 miles on it. Last week I changed the oil with Mobil 5w30 high mileage. Just recently I stated to smell burning oil coming through the cab AC. I took some pictures of where I believe it's coming from. Can y'all help me as to what kind of job I'm in for? Or any recommendations. The pictures are from the driver side under the exhaust manifold.

 

Lol did you spill any oil when you filled it? The oil out on the ends of your exhaust manifold studs looks like it could be newer than the rest of the oil that's been puking out of your valve cover. If there's oil on those studs then there was probably some on the manifold that has burned off already and that's what you were smelling. If it were my engine I'd replace the valve cover gasket and start degreasing it after to see where any other leaks may be happening at 250k.

 

I'd start with the valve cover gasket as mentioned above.

 

I'm almost positive I didn't spill any. I was using a funnel and I was watching the flow. I just wiped it down, I'll drive it around to see if I can find an exact location. How much of a pain are the valve cover gaskets to replace?

 

They wrote "valve cover gasket". Why would you want to replace the manifold gasket?

 

Replacing an exhaust manifold gasket won't fix an oil leak!

 

That's what I meant, my bad.

 

That's V6 - so no personal experience. However there are some good videos showing for example head gasket replacement on V6 and the valve cover removal is one of mandatory steps. What I understand you will have to take the whole intake in order to get access to it. That is much less work than head gasket, but still more than "air filter replacement"

 

Valve cover gaskets.