Bemused and Confused

After the the first track day with the Rat, we all found out that the engine was losing oil somewhere. The engine wasn’t burning the oil because it was not smoking. It was something I needed to figure out. I have not had a chance to work on the car lately because of a lot of real life events. I did order some parts, the oil pan gasket, oil level sensor gasket and a new throttle cable. The parts came in this week so I figured I could use a break from real life and went out to work on the car this weekend.

I first did a bit of an inspection under the car. There was a light sheen of oil down the right front of the engine. This might have been caused when I refilled the oil and missed a bit. It is possible the oil cap is leaking a bit, but I don’t think so. It holds pressure, so I think it is OK.

There was oil pooling on the bottom of the power steering mount, just a drip though with no puddle on the floor. There was oil dripping from the bottom of the transmission bell housing and a coating of oil all over the transmission. This is not really surprising considering the oil leaks when the car is moving. The airflow will push the oil back under the car. I didn’t see anything really obvious so I grabbed my tools and climbed under the car.

I drained the oil to start off seeing as I was removing the bucket that holds all the oil. The oil pan is very long and has about 20 bolts holding it in. The goofy thing is there is a support that bolts over the oil pan at the rear and to the front of the transmission bell housing. Once I figured out that it was there, it was no big deal to get out. I also took out the bolts for the steering rack so I could lower it down to get the pan out.

I removed the bolts and the pan dropped down. I bit of oil came sloshing out because the car was up on the ramps and not level so the oil pooled at the rear of the pan. But, that is as far as I could get the pan to go. It was hung up on the steering rack and the oil pickup tube was not allowing the pan to slide out. I found a way to lower the steering rack a bit more… mostly by yanking on it. I also reread the manual and it said to remove the oil pump. I thought that was because they figure if you are dropping the oil pan, you are going to remove the pump. It turns out that in order to get the clearance you need, the pump has to come out. No problem; it was just three bolts.

A view of the bottom end of the engine, the steering rack and the oil pickup tube

With the rack down and the oil pump out, I was able to wiggle the oil pan out from under the engine. There were no surprises in the oil pan… no parts or metal shavings or anything nasty. I peeled off the old gasket. It was a rubber like material. The new gasket that I just bought is more of a traditional cork gasket. I wonder if somebody used the wrong gasket type or possibly made their own gasket. I certainly looks like that may have been the case.

I started work on cleaning up all the parts. The oil pan cleaned up pretty well. I removed the oil level sensor with the pan out and cleaned it up too. It had a lot of caramelized oil on it.

I went to clean up the odd transmission support that I mentioned earlier and when done, I was surprised to find cracks.

Inside of the mount shown above

Outside of the mount. You can see the spider web of cracks

It looks like compression stress to me. This is a bit disturbing. It could be that it is just from the age. It is also possible that the broken engine mounts and the worn transmission mounts could have allowed enough flexing that it could have caused the damage. It is not cracked all the way through and I don’t think it is any danger of coming apart any time soon. I will probably reuse it for now and get one on order to install later on. It is a $100 special order part so it will take a while to get here.

Tomorrow I will try to get out there and get all of this put back together. Getting the pan back into place without damaging the gasket is going to be a bit of a challenge because of the lack of room. But, I am sure I can find a way.

I also have the two gaskets for the exhaust where it connects to the headers. Looking from the side, it doesn’t look like there are gaskets installed there now. They might be there, but all I can see is red RTV oozing out the sides. I figured that if the gaskets are not there, it would definitely add to the noise generated in the cabin. It is worth a shot.

I will also try to get the throttle cable installed. The current one is very stiff making it hard to move the gas pedal. Normally, I like the gas pedal to be a bit stiff, but this is too much and it indicates a worn throttle cable. Seeing as I don’t want the cable to break leaving me stranded somewhere, I figured that I could try and replace it.