Hi, I'm in the process of replacing the clutch and noticed some oil residue inside. I wanted to get some opinions as how bad you would consider this leak to be. Sorry for the photos, it was the best i could do with bad lighting.







Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

It is the rear main seal looks like. Change it while the transmission is out.

 

The half moon seal between the rear main and the upper pan is going to fight you hard.. Removing the dowel pins for the rear main to help get the half moon in there then tapping them back in through the rear main will help but it's still a huge PITA.

 

Are you going to fix it?

 

That took years to accumulate, if it wasn't dripping out onto the ground under the car, I'd leave it alone.

 

Yea, I guess that's why I wanted to create this thread. I wanted to know just how bad it was and if it was worth the time to fix. Let's say I wanted to get about another 30k miles on it (currently the car is ~136K), would it be worth fixing at this point. I haven't really decided yet.

 

I disagree, keep it mind, the seal started new, so it has started leaking when the seal dried out. Seals don't get better, they get brittle dry and start to fall apart, what your's is doing right now. You have the tranny out, swapping the rear main seal is going to cost you the price of the seal and maybe 30 minutes of your time if you remove the dowel pins. I would definitely do it now instead of having to come back to it in a few months because the dripping oil got progressively worse.

your car, do as you wish. just my $0.02.

 

I agree with doing it now. You arent going to want to have to take all that apart again. Though, when I did mine, I took both the lower and upper oil pan's off and did both seals I think.

Either way, since you are already in there working on it AND it WILL need to be replaced now or in the future, I recommend getting the part and doing it before putting everything back together.

 

OK, if i decide to do this, is there a write up anywhere? Also, ths big question would be is there a way to doing it without removing the oil pan?

 

Negative. Go get the half moon seals for both sides of the oil pan. And the rear main. And grab a couple tubes of rtv as well. From where you are right now, all you gotta do is find a way to support the engine, drop the cross member, and remove the lower then upper oil pan. And of course you'll need fresh oil as well.