turboted

HELP! I am leaking oil from the rear of the oil pan...but there is no oil in the crank! How is this possible?

A little background... This is the 2nd new oil pan gasket I've installed in the past few weeks. But I'm still leaking oil from exactly the same spot on the back side of the pan. The car is on jack stands in my garage...and the front end is raised about 2-3 inches higher than the rear. The new oil pan was installed dry (no silicone) and with gasket rails (to prevent bulging). I'm 100% sure the new gasket is installed correctly and all bolts were torqued in the appropriate sequence. I have not filled the crank up with oil yet. But there is a puddle of oil on my garage floor dripping from the back side of the pan. I just don't understand....

At this point, I strongly suspect the rear main seal. But before we all jump to that conclusion...here's some more pertinent info...

The rear main seal was replaced last summer by the local Porsche shop who replaced my clutch (less than 4k miles ago). After I installed the first pan gasket last month, I filled the crank with Mobile One 15w50. The car ran great, but leaked right away...so I assumed I had installed the pan gasket incorrectly. But now I'm thinking the pan gasket wasn't really the problem to begin with. Maybe the synthetic oil leaked right past the rear main seal and caused it to fail. I've heard this happens...but is this the likely root of my problem?

Please share your thoughts. Is this a rear main seal...or is there another possibility? If it is a RMS, is it best to replace it with the motor in the car by removing the T-tube/tranny...or is it easier to just yank the motor out?

Thanks in advance....

tyro

Under the car, you should be able to see the oil leaking from behind the flywheel.

Synthetic or not, it shouldn't leak. There is no easy fix.

I had a terrible time with my flywheel seal (rear main as some call it).

Finally got it to seal up with the purchase of a $120 install tool, an Elring brand seal (highly recommended) and a little bit of Curil T sealant.

It seems to be rather important that the seal be driven in as straight as possible.

I pulled the transaxle to replace mine, basically a clutch job. Unless you plan to freshen the engine with other new gaskets, it's the best way.

Cory9584

the rear main cant leak if theres no oil in the pan. are you sure you dont just have oil left over somewhere from before?

tyro

Oh yes, how big *is* said puddle of oil?

Oil can sit behind the seal, but it isn't that much.

turboted

The leak is definitely from residual oil left in the crank...and it's dripping out the rear of the motor because the front of the car is raised higher than the rear. Nothing was leaking when I installed the new pan gasket...I made sure both mating surfaces were clean and dry. The size of the puddle on my garage floor is the diameter of a softball or standard size drinking glass. This is after 5 days.

turboted

Other than the pan gasket or the rear main seal, is there any other place on the back side of the motor where oil could leak and drip down the back of the pan? I can't think of ANYTHING. I know it's not coming from the lower balance shaft end cap (just sealed it up with silicone) and I know it's not coming from the rear of the cam tower (head just rebuilt).

tyro

Upper balance shaft cap o-ring?

Softball size is too big for RMS.

turboted

Upper balance shaft? Don't think so...just replaced turbo and AOS seals and did not notice any oil around the upper shaft end cap area. But anything is possible...so I will explore this...thanks for the suggestion.

Local Porsche shop also suspects RMS. At this point, I'm tempted to pull motor and rebuild to 3.0L 16V. Oh wait...I've already spent $3k on the car this year...don't have another $6k lying around! Damn.