Oil in driver's side floor board

[ScreamSalvation]

Well a little interesting thing.

I was pulling up the carpet to get ready for the new fuel pump and rewire and because it was nasty as $&%@ and I didn't want to even bother trying to clean it. The car has had a oil/mechanic shop/musty smell since I got it and I chaulked it up to not being cleaned and sitting for a couple months with things spilled in it.

So I pull up the gray carpet (which was brown on the drivers side) and find that the whole underside of the carpet is a moist. I start cussing and think weatherstripping or something similar but it hadn't rained in a bit and hot days and leaving the door open for it to vent didn't make it seem like water. I continued to pull it up and then the rubber matt underneath (which was extremely flexible and brittle) and noticed a light oil coating the floor pan. Let it sit and it collected on one side and ran my fingers through it and sure enough it was a light oil.

There isn't anything that can leak like that under the dash correct?

I'm thinking maybe the PO stuck a bottle of some light oil he was using on bolts in there and it leaked all over the carpet and floor and has just been trapped under the carpet. Which could explain the oily smell and why the heck the carpet looked like poo (in the best terms). I cleaned it all up with degreaser and am just going to watch for anymore showing up (gonna be a bit before I put the carpet back) and watch for any water leaks the next good rain we have.

 

[Killa_dsm]

The only thing I could think of that could leak on the drivers side would be the clutch master cylinder. When the clutch master cylinder starts going out it will leave fluid on the carpet by the clutch peddle. But I dont think there is enough fluid to make the whole carpet wet like you described. Where exactly is it wet?

 

[Daaan]

sounds to me that someone has spilled somthing on the floor mat. you should have asked the guy what it was when you bought the car.

 

[talonDSMerr]

This happened to my brother, but not nearly as much oil to wet the entire carpet. I'm just throwing this out there as a possibility. He had an oil pressure gauge and the line got kinked by the pedals and started leaking from there, but it wasn't a huge amount.

 

[WarSaw]

I had a similar situation when I bought my last car. The passenger side carpet was thoroughly soaked with oil and the spare tire well had three inches of standing oil in it. Cleaned both up and that was the end.

I would chalk yours up to a spill that was never properly cleaned up. Keep an eye out though and see what happens.

 

[pimpin81]

wow never herd of this before. are you sure its oil. could it be anitfreeze from a bad heater core?

 

[crimsondragon]

I had a situation where I dumped half a gallon of used motor oil on my carpet. It sure was fun cleaning that up. Rip up the carpet and let it soak in detergent and water. Clean the floorboards thoroughly with an oil dissolver like Simple Green.

 

[ScreamSalvation]

Positive it's not coolant, no sweet smell at all. It was a light brown and not thick enough to be any form of engine oil. It's almost like a WD40, maybe slightly thicker.

But as the area it was on, The WHOLE driverside floor pan. When I bought the car the carpet was $%^#ed anyway, it seems like it had been there a while because the top of the carpet was not moist to the touch. Pretty none existant on the top, but when you pulled it up there it all was. That leads me to be that it was there before the PO, he only had the car for 4 months. Long enough to drop a lot of money into it and decide he wanted a GSX.


I'm thinking dynamat or something similar under the new carpet.

Waiting on my Wabro 190 so I can wire it in, then injectors, maft, eprom ecu and dsmlink and I should be running (hopefully).

I am gonna check for any kinked lines, thought of clutch fluid but as much as was down there and it still being full of fluid?

With the clutch fluid I take it that the padding under the rubber flooring would also be soaked up near the top of the padding? The rub with the pad under it was only soaked around the bottom, slightly up the turn in the body, I have yet to find any moisture up higher.

 

[ScreamSalvation]

AC lines are not even hooked to the compressor, PO swapped in a 6 bolt and put the compressor in. He was told the lines need o rings so he didn't bother to reconnect them.

Car does have an aftermarket oil pres gauge in a pillar mount. Believe they ran it off the stock pressure gauge because it no longer functions.

 

[Cs4g63]

If its not thick enough to be engine oil than it is most likely that the clutch master is leaking fluid. It could be that the previous owner would continuously just add fluid to the reservoir when it was low instead of figuring out that it had been leaking on the inside of the car and fixing the problem. It wouldnt be the first time I have seen it happen.

 

[ScreamSalvation]

I'm going to be watching it to see what it is. No plans on recarpeting till it either doesn't leak for months or I find and fix the issue

Car isn't being driven now as some of you know.

 

[Defiant]

Holy crap, it's either the brake or clutch master cylinder leaking. If it's all black, it's probably the clutch master from never having had its fluid changed.
Pull back the dust covers on the cylinders and see which one pukes all over your hand.

 

[ScreamSalvation]

, gotta love fixing something when it can be descibed as "puking on your hand".

I haven't had any free time from work to slide under the dash yet, hopefully this weekend. Gotta finish replacing the water pump on my 4x4 as it has been down for 2 weeks waiting on the parts to come in.

But the oil is a light tan, but there is no telling how much of the tan in the oil is dirt It was pretty dirty down there.

 

[bluegs03]

if there is an oil gauge in the car check to make sure its not a mechanical one. This can be done easily by pulling the gauge out and seeing if there is an oil line running to it. If there is a line running to it i would bet 10$ that somewhere behind the dash you have motor oil leaking out and causing a potentially fatal hazard. Maybe im paranoid but dying from a spray of 200degree plus motor oil is not he way i wanna go... althought i might be overreacting, at the very least it could catch your interior on fire...

 

[ScreamSalvation]

I'm almost 95% sure that the gauge is an electric one. The oem gauge is electrical isn't it? Only line i see running into the pillar gauges is one for the boost gauge.