Does anybody know what this is

My truck was leaking pretty bad where the rear main seal is so I replaced it and the gasket behind it put my transmission back on and now it leaks but slower than before but still a steady leak. I took a pic of this steel ball looking thing cause I had no clue what it was only the thing I could find was that it was an expansion plug.

 

My fist thought is an oil gallery plug I would need to look to be 100% sure.

 

What exactly does a oil gallery plug do.

 

Engine blocks are cast as one piece then passages for oil to get where it needs to go are drilled, the extra holes that are used to drill the passages are plugged typically with a threaded plug but they can be plugged by other means.

That looks like a bearing ball pressed in to plug it.

I'm not sure how you would remedy that if that's indeed what's leaking, maybe clean it really good and put some JB weld there.

 

Just throwing this out there because my brother was wondering if one of those freeze plugs around that area would be covering oil for some reason because after changing the rear main seal and gasket it’s still leaking where the fly wheel and oil pan are. Or do you know of any other area above the rear main seal could leak oil that could still travel down and leak where the fly wheel is. There’s a picture of where it’s leaking from and yes I took the oil pan off changed the gasket and did the sequence for tightening the oil pan. I don’t know what else to do about this leak besides drop the transmission again and see if the rear main seal is faulty that I put on

 

Man, that oil pan lip looks pretty beat up
Right where drips coming from

sure pan sits flush with crank case halves?
I have had to ‘bend’ both oil/tranny pans with vise grips/vise/pliers gently to get flush and seat properly in the past

I had to remove my 2.4L oil pan recently
I know everyone nowadays just uses RTV
I went old school and replaced the cork gasket (like $8 from RA)
Trick old mechanic showed me that REALLY works…..spray 3M adhesive on one side of gasket and stick to block or pan(whatever you like) Made mount job super easy.

 

All I did was cut the part that hangs down because there was a bolt whole that got stripped so we had to thread a bigger whole which caused for a slightly bigger bolt which I couldn’t tighten all the way without cutting that little piece off. I used rtv and a cork gasket. I just don’t think it’s leaking from the oil pan because it’s dripping from above the oil pan. Can’t really get a good picture but once you’re down there you can definitely tell it’s dripping from above the oil pan. Also I thought I fixed the oil leak because I let it run for few minutes and there was no dripping but once I turned it off for a minute and looked back down there it was steadily dripping.

 

Here is another thread talking about it too. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/oil-expansion-freeze-plug-failure-above-rear-main-seal.564595/

I have seen it discussed on another forum too. No real answer to how it can be fixed if leaking.

 

I usually advocate for the most obvious explanation, which the weird ball plug and beat up pan would be… But if you’re interested in exploring other possible causes it could be the rear of the valve cover gasket/cam plug? Should be easy enough to peek back there and confirm if that is where the leak is originating from.

 

It ain’t hard to ding a perfectly good seal on installation…..

 

re-seat your dipstick tube.

 

Had to find an oil leak on a Ford F250 5.4 V8. Used a UV light without the dye to look, motor oil does glow slightly under the light. Worked in my case, Just my .02