Another BIG Oil leak

[TurboDSM86]

hello, i have somewhat of a mysterious oil leak. it happened pretty much out of the blue while driving. i came to a stop and noticed some nice smoke coming from under my hood and knew it was oil. i checked for anything major on the side of the road and limped the 2 miles home. here i am in my garage now with this monster that i can never seem to keep running well. well i cleaned everything off with a few cans of brake kleen, the shit was everywhere. oil seemed to start from somewhere around the turbo and it covered a lot. it covered the downpipe all the way to the cat converter, covered lower control arms, oil pan etc. i realistically had NO idea where it was coming from due to it covering half the underside of my car. after cleaning everything up i started it up and let it run for a good 15 minutes with me under it with my light waiting for the first sign of oil leaking. NOTHING. i decided since it was all clean and now warmed up that it would be a great idea to go beat on it and see if i can make it leak since we all know oil leaks dont fix themselves .

after out boosting and somewhat beating on my car for literally 3 or 4 minutes i pull it back in the garage and put it up on jackstands. smoke is billowing out from under the hood now. i crawl under it and sure as shit the same places ad mentioned before were all soaked in oil. what i did notice this time was that there was oil STARTING half way down my oil return line from my turbo. the only other place that seemed that could be a culprit was my dipstick tube but is that possible? my next question is if it is indeed the oil return line (which has no visible cracks/leaks that i can see), why would it not be leaking or spraying at idle? could it be due to the 5/6/7K RPM range with all that oil pressure on it? im pretty stumped and have included a couple pictures i snapped of the oil return line after driving it and making it smoke. the other picture illustrates the massive amount that this covered. i know when tracing leaks to start at the highest point that you can see, so please dont tell me that . thanks in advance for your help!

 

[ECLIPSE4x4]

By the pictures it is really hard to tell. I would suggest using a degreaser and doing the car while on jackstands. Let it idle for awhile.

When you say dipstick, was it popped out. If so, yes it could spray that much oil over everything.

 

[napkinthief]

idle wont have enough push to shoot oil out of the dipstick tube, but if ur dipstick came out even 1" it would shoot up, then hit the little guard on the bottom of the stick, then splatter and messy up everything

 

[25psilaser]

It looks to be your oil return tube they crack all the time and will leak all the time.Wash it off and watch it you can see before the flex its clean and at the flex it s covered in oil.

 

[CanadianTSi]

Oil filter hosuing could of backed off, seen it happens to 2 of my friends.

 

[TurboDSM86]

Oil filter hosuing could of backed off, seen it happens to 2 of my friends.

its not that, that was 2 weeks ago's problem


eclipse 4x4: i did have the car up on jackstands when i cleaned it. i let it sit for 30 minutes while i went to go get some more brake kleen.


25psilaser: i am going to take the oil return line off and check that out


to everyone else, the dipstick was not popped up at all, i was talking about where it goes into the block but apparently that isnt it.

ill let everyone know


thanks for the help

 

[CorrupTTalon]

that oil return line doesnt look good. undo the oil pan end and see what happens when you move the drain tube around

 

[jonwal1]

Was it the return line ? My car did the same thing. I lost about 4 quarts. I dont have it home yet, but would like some heads up on what i'm gonna be looking at fixing this weekend. Thanks

 

[playitlouddsm]

Throw in some interdynamics fluorescent leak detector dye into your oil, grab a pen sized fluorescent light and some uv glasses. Works great you can see exactly where any oil is leaking out of.

 

[hellotbone]

Throw in some interdynamics fluorescent leak detector dye into your oil, grab a pen sized fluorescent light and some uv glasses. Works great you can see exactly where any oil is leaking out of.

Very good suggestion, I use this same procedure on my own car with success if I have a problem. I suggest changing the oil, and filter and adding the dye as said above and then let it idle and have a look. Because the dye glows under the light you will be able to see it seeping or anything under the car. It really shows you where the problem is. Its possibly the oil return but I have had those leak a couple times and its more of a drip then a coating like that.

How is your PCV and valve cover breather routed? Catch can or stock setup? Also pull your intake off and your LICP and check for oil its possible that the turbo is shot but that's a stab in the dark but something to check. Also its possible but highly unlikely that your cartridge is cracked and leaking but a million to one shot on that too. The oil return line maybe but I don't really buy it. Because of the way its leaking I would rule out end seals or oil pump gasket but it can run around the pan and drip down as well some things to look at. I would get that dye though and then have everything clean and watch it for a while idling if it doesn't leak then rev it up a bit and then look and so on. If it still doesn't leak then take it for like one small pull down the street not a 3-5 min drive then look. You want to get it to start the leak and get back to see it before the car is soaked and you have no chance of finding it.