I found a leak under my truck but I have no idea what i'm looking at. I found a lot of oil all over and can't find that names of the parts that I think look suspicious under there. There is a the tank thing located in front of the oil tank with what looks like a hole in it and the sensor (o2 sensor?) connector covered in oil. My truck has really been having problems lately. Can someone tell me what that "tank thing" is and if there is anything obvious you can see wrong?

 

Well the arrow is pointing at the Transmission flexplate cover could be one of 2 oils that could come from there is it black or red? Black rear main seal Engine. Red front pump seal Transmission.

 

it's black. Would an oil leak from there cause the engine oil to be low? The highest area with oil on it is up on the wires that come down for the sensor connector so I'm not sure if it is actually leaking from that cover or if it is working it's way down there from some other area.

 

Well it could be leaking from valve covers and leaking down wind while you are driving blows oil back towards the cover so yeah maybe.

Yes that would cause the engine oil to be low depending on how bad the leak is.

 

I got under there with a flashlight this time and looked closer and every bolt for the oil pan is coated in oil so I'm thinking it might be the oil pan gasket. It also started leaking coolant and looking closely it seems to be coming from the gasket for the water pump. So i'm gonna try changing out some gaskets before too long and hopefully the leaks stop.

 

Oil on the oil pan bolts doesn't necessarily mean the oil pan gasket is leaking. If you have leaky valve cover gasket(s), the oil will run down to the oil pan anyway, so make sure you fix the easiest leaks first. What engine do you have? If it's a 4.9 I6, the pushrod cover gasket is prone to leaking first. For both V8 & 6cyl engines, look at the area right under the valve cover gasket(s), is it black and oily? Changing the valve cover gasket is easier than changing the oil pan gasket. Typically, you have to unbolt the motor mounts and lift the engine to change the oil pan gasket, whereas the valve cover gasket only requires removing obstacles in the engine bay.
If you have coolant leaking from in front of the oil pan, your water pump could be going bad. Look for coolant drips from the small weep hole in the bottom of the water pump, which is toward the front of the truck, at the end of the oil pan.
Rear main engine seal and transmission seals both require removing the transmission, & if you do that, you might as well replace the clutch kit & slave cylinder while you're at it, if it's a manual transmission. You don't want to pull the trans. just to have to do it again later. Best wishes.

 

It's a 5.8.

Where are the valve cover gaskets? I'm really new to this and trying to learn as things come up. I went under the oil pan again today to check to see if i could tighten any of the oil pan bolts and some were loose enough to tighten with my hand. I tightened as many as i could get too without a longer extender thing for my tool.

I don't see any coolant coming from the weep holes of the water pump and the highest point i see coolant is near a seal coming from a horizontal connection of two pieces that the thermostat housing connects to. I will have to post a picture because i don't know what that is called. There is also coolant around the bottom of the distributor connector but i don't know if it has just settled there.

I'm trying to figure out whether this is a small problem or something bigger. I have a feeling the place i bought this truck rigged it up in some way cause about 2 weeks after i bought it things started falling apart. It's just about paid off and now I'm hoping there isn't some expensive gasket leak.

In the picture the red arrow points to the seal for the parts i don't know the name of and the yellow one is pointing where it may just be collecting the coolant.

Thanks for the help guys


this one is from underneath the crankshaft and water pump