![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/IMG_00111-150x150.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0011\\"")
<\/a>Ike, like all (old?) Jeeps, leak. Some leak a lot, some only a little, but that seems to be a commonality between them all. when I bought Ike, it had a small leak that was manageable. Park it over cardboard, and life was good. I always checked the oil level, and since I purchased him, only 3 quarts have gone in.<\/p>\nAbout a week ago, after I got him all back together, I drove Ike more in a single day than I usually do. Most of my drives are 4-10 miles at a time, with a good rest in between before being driven again. I was so excited to have Ike back I took him for a 20+ mile drive in one direction – in near 100\u00ba weather. He performed beautifully. He’s developed a slight miss on one of his cylinders, but overall, he runs better than expected for a 60 year old vehicle. Well, after this long drive I parked Ike over some cardboard I brought just to be safe.<\/p>\n
After a few hours it was time to leave where I was, I collected the cardboard and realized that the oil left was not only greater in volume, but had a slightly different color and consistency. I had just put a quart in a few days before the radiator went out, and during the few weeks between then and when I got him back together, there were no leaks at all. I assumed that the thinner, clearer, newer oil had not completely mixed with the old, thick oil and that’s what the difference was. It almost looked like oil snot to be honest.<\/p>\n
I drove Ike back home, taking a slightly different, although longer route, that provided me with plenty of opportunities to pull over or push him out of the road if it became necessary, watching the oil pressure and temperature the whole way. Once I got Ike home, I took a mental image of the cardboard he was on to see how much oil would leak and what it would look like. The next day I went out and was shocked at the amount of oil. I don’t know if I was shocked at how little came out or how much, but it certainly was unexpected.<\/p>\n
I let Ike sit for a few day, after all the old guy was put through some pretty rough driving, 40+ MPH with very few stops. With the condition of the engine, transmission, and very warn transfer case, that’s a lot of stress. During my normal course of business, I took Ike out one more time, this time just for a quick run around the block to see how things were. I repeated the process of leaving him in his spot over night, and then checking the oil on the floor. Luckily, the amount of oil didn’t appear to change, but I noticed that there was a black spot on the concrete between my two oil catching cardboard pieces.<\/p>\n
I grabbed a flash light, only to see that the spot was just a bit of caked on crud that had fallen off. However, the light showed me that the oil on the drip card board was different. It has a slight green tint to it, something I wasn’t expecting. My first instinct was that the coolant was leaking into the oil, but a check of the water levels showed everything was full. I checked the dipstick with the flash light and saw no florescent green shining back.<\/p>\n
Scratching my head, I started looking for the source. To my dismay, the caked on oil, grit, and grime provided a nice hideout for the source. I did, however, see that the rear of the oil pan, bell housing, and front of the transmission were all coated in wet oil. At last, only 3 possible solutions that all have the same symptoms as the others!<\/p>\n
At this point, I need to determine if the leak is the oil pan, rear main seal, or![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/IMG_0012-150x150.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0012\\"")
<\/a>thetransmission. With the color of the large oil leaks having a clearer and different consistency, that could either mean that there is\/was some coolant leaking through the head gasket, but not enough to show up in the oil pan (unlikely), or that another oil source is mixed in the leak. With the whole assembly between the block and transmission covered in oil, it is fairly likely that the gear oil from the transmission is finding its way out.<\/p>\nOne day soon I’ll be taking Ike out for another round of pressure washes, this time jacking him up and focusing on the rear of the block to see if I can find a better clue as to the source of this leak. I’m really hoping that the issue isn’t with the rear main seal. If that’s the case, my only real option is to start my teardown early. If this leak was directly related to the long haul I took Ike through, he instead just goes to limited use until March.<\/p>\n
For now, I’m checking oil levels every time he gets started, and soon I’ll be giving the transmission, transfer case, and both differentials a oil level check. Hopefully everything will work out and Ike will last until March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Basically, neither can figure out how to stop an oil leak. Ike, like all (old?) Jeeps, leak. Some leak a lot, some only a little, but that seems to be a commonality between them all. when I bought Ike, it had a small leak that was manageable. Park it over cardboard, and life was good. I always checked the oil level, and since I purchased him, only 3 quarts have gone in. About a week ago, after I got him all back together, I drove Ike more in a single day than I usually do. Most of my drives are…<\/p>\n
Continue readingWhat do BP and I have in common?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cj-3a","category-jeep","category-willys","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pE9Qq-5v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.kurtisfranklin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/IMG_00111.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0011\\"")
<\/a>Ike, like all (old?) Jeeps, leak. Some leak a lot, some only a little, but that seems to be a commonality between them all. when I bought Ike, it had a small leak that was manageable. Park it over cardboard, and life was good. I always checked the oil level, and since I purchased him, only 3 quarts have gone in.<\/p>\n