Hi guys, a couple of days ago, I discovered a small puddle near the right rear wheel after driving for a short distance. So I touched the liquid, it's not engine oil but it's coolant. So I let my friend checked it out and he said the water pump is going soon. I don't think the previous owner has replaced anything major before so the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, crank and cam shaft seals combo is a must. What I'm wondering is, do I need to take out the engine to replace all those? Also, I have a oil leak in the engine. Last time when I took it to Japanoid, the guy said the 'rear main seal' is leaking that I should wait until I replace the timing belt to replace them all at the same time when they take out the engine. What I wanna know is, what is the rear main seal? Should I just buy all the parts and replace them myself? Or it's going to be a tough job taking the engine out at home? My brother even told me to replace all the gaskets if I am taking the engine apart but that can be costly if I ask a mechanic to do it... Please advise. Thanks.
small puddle can you give us a size? maybe you got her to hot? if it's not dripping dont change it. but keep a eye on it. i would drive it for 1-2 more days then check it.
It drips whenever I turn off the ignition, even a 5 min drive drips. The puddle is the size of the wheel. Anybody can shine me a light to my questions? Thanks again.
I'm a backyard mechanic with 20 years on-the-job experience. I've been keeping my old cars going for 40+ years, but I have no real expertise in these engines. In the absence of perhaps more-qualified responses, here are my thoughts: 1) If you're going to go as far as to take the thing apart, fix everything you can. However, it is all a big balancing act. There may be some limit to how far you want to go, but you don't want to put it all back together with a part deep in the machine that is going to fail. Anything that could determine the critical path to the end of the engine's life needs to be considered. For example, if a seal is gone, chances are the surface it runs against needs to be machined. No point putting a good seal in to get torn out buy a rough crank, that sort of thing. And no point taking the crank out and putting it back together with old bearings to save $100. 2) Rear Main Seal refers to the seal at the end of the crankshaft where it couples to the transmission. If you're replacing that you're into serious engine work. Yes, the engine has to be removed to replace it. 3) Doing the job yourself is a matter of your confidence level, the tools and space you have, and must be weighed against other factors like how desperately you need the vehicle, tolerance for delays and failure, whether you like doing it, if costs are the issue, etc. I wouldn't recommend doing this job in the driveway. I would want to have a shop to work in for a week or two, more tools than I have now, and access to machine shops and a source of spare parts. If you're going to pull the crank to change the RM seal you have to consider machining all the bearing surfaces and replacing the bearings. Then you have to think boring the block and replacing the pistons with over-sized, etc. At this point you need to think seriously about buying a re-built engine block, which pretty much makes this a one-day job, but costs $3k and probably more (here's where I look at my truck that I paid ~$4k for and really start to wonder). Finally, DIY saves you money but you underwrite your own warranty. If it fails it is nice to have someone to fix it under obligation of warranty. I hope I have not given you too much bad news, and I urge you to seek additional advice. Good luck!!
Thanks for the response. It definitely helps in my decision making. The least I have to do is get the timing belt, water pump etc replaced. I think those can be done without much problems. I don't think I will fix the oil leak problem. It doesn't leak that much at this time and I will just monitor the oil level from time to time. I love my van very much so I'm not planning to sell it. If it involves that much to replace the RM seal, it doesn't seem too cost effective to do the job. I mean, fix the oil leak doesn't guarantee other parts won't fail in the long run so.. But do you have any knowledge on any of those stop leak products? You think that's worth trying? Thanks again
I used Lucas stop leak (http://www.lucasoil.ca/products/product.asp?id=35&cat=HeavyDuty) and was surprised to find it actually helped. Not completely, but reduced my oil leakage by half or better. It took a while to make a difference, but I'm glad I did it. I have never tried another product. The one concern I have with the Lucas product is it is quite high viscosity. The manual says not to use 50w or higher oil, and I don't know what the resultant viscosity is with 3 parts 30w and 1 part Lucas additive (approximately the ratio I used). Edit: The product I actually used was http://www.lucasoil.ca/products/product.asp?id=31&cat=Automotive (oil stabilizer, not stop leak).
