oil leak.

[lite]

i changed my oil and oil filter a couple of months ago. january i think. changed it every 5k kms. anyway. its been leaking oil lately. not so much. but drips.

im not sure where it comes from but i checked under the car. and the nut's pretty tight and i doubt any oil would be dripping from there. i looked at the engine and i think its coming out of the oil filter. the filter seems to be pretty tight as well... and im not sure what to do to stop the leak. should i buy a new oil filter or just reapply the current oil filter?

by reapply i mean taking it out and putting it back in again. :P

and.. sometimes.. when i start the car, clear white smoke comes out the exhaust. why is this? oil mixing with gas perhaps?

[qkslvr]

I'm assuming you have recently changed brands/grade of engine oil? How many K's has your car done?

If your car has done some serious km's and then you change to thinner or synthetic oil you will undoubtably get leaks as rubber seals will shrink. If the car has done more than 100,000km then perhaps your valve seals are worn in and by changing to thinner oil allows oil to leak past the valve seals into the cylinder while the car sits overnight in the cold. The white smoke in the morning is the burning of that oil.

Hope this helps

[lite]

Yeah. You're correct. I actually changed oil brand AND grade. My import has done over 100,000kms. The oil I'm using at the moment is semi-synthetic. I forgot what the figures were though, It's a Shell.

Would the oil leaks stop? As I keep on using this new oil? The car's 1994.

[qkslvr]

The oil leak won't stop. the only solutions is to use thicker oil. this is of course only a temp fix as thicker oil will not protect your engine as well.

Give the engine a good degrease. and then try to locate the leak. older seals will usually start leaking when you change to synthetic oils as they will react by shrinking. try to get the leak fixed and monitor your oil levels for a few months after. If the engine burns up too much oil you may need to consider changing to a thicker oil. the next option after that is an engine rebuild.

Hope this helps.

[qkslvr]

Oh, one other thing i forgot to mention is that oil may be coming from the oil filter rubber ring seal. sometime cheap filter have crappy rubber seals that shrink and no longer offer a good seal against the engine block. Hope it's the filter as its one of the cheaper problems to have.

if you degrease regularly try not to get too much degreaser on rubber seals as it may break down the rubber cause seals to shrink or break.

[lite]

yeah. I've degreased the engine before. and it's coming out of the oil filter area. did this a few weeks ago. and it started leaking again.

so i'm guessing it is leaking from the oil filter area. what should i do? i already reapplied the oil filter. tighted it. but i know that wont work.. or will it? so.. any advice?

[Rolla Boy]

Buy a genuine oil filter... Clean the surface first and then fit the new filter...

If it's the filter, then it'll be all good from there...

[lite]

yeah. thanks. oh and.. nice burnout. lol! where was this?

[Rolla Boy]

Cheers dude... It was like about a year ago with all the boys... You can see them all admiring at the end of the video :D :D :D ...