As i was doing a routine check under the car this morning, I stumbled upon probably my first leak.

I'm suspecting it to be the rear valve cover gasket. The car is an 01 GLE with 168K miles. All stock and no gasket work done as yet.

Here is the first pic..



From the same spot I took another pic slightly at a different angle...


then getting under the car and positioning the camera right below the LCA bolt is visible here is another pic....


moving further under and towards the middle of the car another shot...


I tried to get a shot of the rear bank and heres the best i cud


I have been monitoring oil levels meticulously and have not notice a sever drop at all... at any given time it is very very close to the H mark on the dip stick so I'm not really worried about it. I'm more worried about getting oil drops in my garage

Any thoughts guys?

 

a little oil goes a very long way. you probably have a tiny leak so you would never notice a drop in oil level.

If you want to track it down i wold start from the top and see if you can see the highest point at which the oil is and most likely it will be at a gasket or seal.

good luck

 

looks like thats from the cv boots to me

 

probably not the cv boots, it would be much more thick, more grease than oil like. I have the exact problem as you and my mechanic is going to change all the gaskets from the top to bottom like someone else said and go from there. I'll let you know if it fixes mine, if so i have list of all he parts he replaced. i'll be doing this soon, within a week or so.

 

Is it wet around the valve covers? The few pics you took are all toward the bottom of the engine. The pics look like the front axle seal (garloc seal) where the axle goes into the differential! What color is the oil? Wash your engine down and see if you can find the origin performing a leak check while under the vehicle...

 

It will begin to eat your LCA bushings. My vote goes for the rear valve cover, but there is always the slim possibility it is PS fluid. Looks high enough to rule out the oil pressure sensor unfortunatly. It's not the "front" axle seal, not just because there isn't a front axle seal, but it's way to far away and I've seen those same spots wet before and it's ps, oil pres sens or valve cover, valve cover get's my vote.

 

How do I check for this? The rear valve cover is pretty much hidden under the whole intake manifold.

about the garloc seal, do u have a schematic pic?

The oil is golden... hmmm now that you mention it... if you see the 2nd pic.. I can see the oil almost forming a drop..

the pulley bolt visible in the first pic.. is that the ps pump? in the later pics you can see that black part all covered in oil... wonder if it is a ps pump leak?

 

check your powersteering hose, the upper on. pull back the tube and check for leaking.

 

Thanks... going to try it this afternoon...

is it easier to access the hose from up or under the car?

 

under the hood, right behind the engine between the firewall.

 

Thank you sir.

Here are some more pics I took.

Theres definately a rear valve cover leak.
pic 1: Taken from right-passenger side directly looking at valve cover bolt.


pic 2: Taken from under the car under driver's side. you can see the throttle body underside towards the left of the pic.


pic 3: The question mark area of the PS pump. Towards the middle of the pic you can also see the oil leak at the rear vavle cover.



pic 4: Another shot of the ps pump area. The upper hose with the large bolt felt pretty tight and there was no wetness there. however this second hose the one with the clip on it and the sheath did feel slightly wet and I could twist it around. Towards the middle of the pic you can also see the oil leak at the rear vavle cover.


could it be that second ps hose too? I need to plan for the valve cover gasket anyways!

 

check your oil sensor maybe the conectors are brocken

 

If there was a broken connection at the oil sensor wud'nt a light come up?

Anyways, where is that sensor located? I can quickly check that out too!

 

An old timer here revisiting after an invitation for the ORG. Boy am I glad I did. I did search for this and landed on this post.

I have what appears to be the exact same leak on my 96 SE as the OP. The color of the drip is somewhat brownish and not red, so I thought it was a oil leak and not power steering fluid. I may spring and change the PS return line. I had a simsiar problem on my 86 Nissan truck. The rubber hoses get brittle with old age (like me) and leak (like me). I have no problem changing a valve cover gasket if necessary, but it appears to be happening below the VC.

 

I had the problem a while back and I actually fixed it. It is most likely the high pressure power steering hose which runs on the passenger side from strut mount all the way down the firewall. I actually had a rat in NYC in my engine last winter nibble on it and a few wires that actually stalled my car and killed my battery as I was getting on to the on ramp of the highway. A quick boost got me back on the road but the damage was done from the hose. I was hitting up the autozone for weeks for power steering fluid after I sprung the leak. I was also burning the fluid on the engine and had smoke come out of the engine a few times. Once I got the new hose in all better but had to change the control arm bushings since the oil that spilled on the control arm wore it all out. Hopefully that would help you all.

 

KRRZ350 i think is right. Rear VC gasket is bad. Thats where mine was it usually leaks in this corner.

 

oh boy... thread comes back to life..

Yes I posted this sometime back... I also did find out the rear VC was leaking pretty bad... I posted a followup thread on my VC change have not noticed any leaks since then.. but I still have to check the PS pump area to confirm the rear VC gasket did infact cause this !