Oil Leak above oil filter

Hope that solves it!

 

 

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Me too!

From my experience with EJ motors there really isn’t anything above the oil filter that could leak. So make sure the filter is tight and hopefully that should fix it!

 

 

\’’—o—‘’/

It was the gasket between the oil cooler and the block. No more leak. Thanks everyone for the advice. This site saves me so much time and potentially wasted cash. That way I can spend the cash on other things that will make my oil leak. LOL

 

 

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Having the same issue right now. Love helpful threads like this!!!!!

 

Thank you everyone, especially Max Capacity, for helping above!

Agreed, Max is a wealth of knowledge about these cars.

Thanks guys, I try to help where I can.

Coming to add on to this thread years later!

 

Recently purchased a 2006 Subaru Legacy 2.5i wagon with a manual, and had it inspected + had a wheel bearing/hub assembly replaced. While the issues the inspection turned up were minor (brakes are worn, tires are worn, power steering has a minor leak), today I took the time to personally poke around the car myself better than I was able to before.

 

I noticed some wetness (oily/grimy) around the bottom of the engine, and on the subframe and took some pics. The source seems to be above and around the oil filter (sadly it looks to be a fram filter, going to be replacing this and changing the oil shortly).

 

Either this is the same issue you guys discussed so long ago in this thread, or it's something else (hopefully not HG). The timing belt/cam seals/pulleys were done at 86k, car is now at 124.5k. I've added some pics below, let me know what you guys think it is (I haven't a lick of experience on the matter). Thanks!

 

 

Edit: sorry my images are so big, I don't know what to do about that This is my first post

let me know what you guys think it is

 

Kind of reminds me of my car a little. On my car, I can't tell if it's the head gaskets or the oil pan leaking. From what I've learned here, it seems like it's inevitable that the head gaskets on our non-turbos will go bad, the graphite coating eventually wears away, and oil seeps out from the return passages.

 

Our non-turbos don't have an oil cooler between the oil filter and the engine block, the oil filters just screw right onto the engine block. Fram oil filters get a bad rap, but they're actually not that bad.

 

It also looks like your valve cover gasket could be leaking. Fel-Pro makes a kit which includes the valve cover gasket, and everything else that gets replaced during a head gasket job, except new head bolts, if you choose to replace those. Replacing the valve cover gaskets with the engine sitting as is, is a real pain. In your first image, the back valve cover bolt is damn near impossible to remove without lifting up the engine a little, it hits the subframe if you don't.

 

External oil leaks like that aren't a huge concern in my opinion, but I think it might be what caused my clutch to start slipping 15k-20k after it was replaced 3 years ago. I'm curious to know if you have engine oil coming back and hitting the transmission drain plug like I do. I can't find the pic I took a few years ago, so I stole one from this thread and attached it below. (Just to show you where the transmission drain plug is)

 

A couple other things about our cars..

-Check your engine oil often until you get a feel for how much oil it consumes. Consumption may be higher with hot weather, highway driving, and as your oil gets more miles on it (2k+ my consumption increases)

 

There was a recall to put an anti-corrosion wax on parts of our hard metal brake lines. They can still fail, especially where the hard metal line clips to the body, and the wax can't really fully protect the line (in my opinion). This is if you live in a place that gets snow and stuff, if you're in cali or something I wouldn't worry.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2014/RCMN-14V311-4153.pdf (Page 7)

Edited July 17, 2021 by apexi

I'm curious to know if you have engine oil coming back and hitting the transmission drain plug like I do

 

I'll take a look when I get a chance! Sad to hear that it's probably the head gaskets, previous owner didn't get them done and there's nothing in the maintenance history to suggest they were. Sad that they didn't have them done along with their cam seals and whatnot. I did have to completely top off the oil because the dipstick was reading below the low mark which isn't a great sign of careful ownership by the previous owner, but that's on me for not noticing earlier.

 

I'm thinking of borrowing a block tester from autozone/advance, thinking that may be a good way to determine how serious the leak is and/or if it's leaking internally.

 

Hopefully its ok to drive on for a while since I don't really have the budget to have a shop replace the head gaskets/resurface the heads. With enough effort I might be able to do it myself but I don't think I could do it quickly enough for it to be feasible.

With our cars it's usually just oil leaking externally that creates a mess when the head gaskets go bad, so you can drive on it for awhile, I wouldn't be worried about driving like that for awhile.

I'm curious to know if you have engine oil coming back and hitting the transmission drain plug like I do.

 

I forgot to take a picture, but I checked while changing my oil and I didn't see any oil hitting the transmission drain plug. I suppose this is something to keep an eye on, will likely be jacking the car up again soon so I'll take a pic then.

 

I also ran a block test and didn't find any combustion gases in my coolant vapors, so the leak is indeed external, which is some nice peace of mind. Now all I have to worry about is a coolant drain/flush of some sort because when I first got the car I topped off the coolant with Peak asian 50/50 and recently discovered that the stuff in the radiator is significantly less green than the peak stuff in my reservoir (radiator stuff is sort of a greenish/bluish/teal). Hopefully won't gum my engine up, hence my upcoming switch to long life coolant.

 

Any advice on whether or not a coolant system flush with distilled water will negatively affect the head gaskets/other cooling system bits? Or should I just stick with a drain and fill? Thanks again!

Very unlikely that a head gasket would fail there. More than likely, it's just the oil pan. Hit that whole area with engine degreaser and then see where the fresh spots show up

 

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