Hello all...

I have a 96 Jimmy I just bought a few months ago. It has 220,000 on it and runs great. Typically for me every thing on a vehicle has to be perfect. A few weeks ago I noticed I have a small oil leak. 2-3 drops everytime I park it. Not enough to change the level on the stick over the course of month but it drives me nuts. It comes down the bellhousing so you know what that means (rear main). Does anyone just live with a small leak like this? Or should I look at pulling the tranny out and doing a rear main on it. Please give me your opinions/and or Concerns as I'm really considering leaving it alone and dealing with it if and when it gets worse.

Thank You!

If it makes an difference it has been my daily driver lately. My Dodge SRT-10 sucks waaayyy to much gas to drive 31 miles each way to my new job.

 

If it is the rear main seal, then you'll pretty much have to pull either the engine or the transmission, the trans being the easier of the two. If it isn't annoying you, then I'd say investigate and narrow it down. If it's the seal and you can live with it leaking like that, just leave it.

Reason why I said 'if' is because I have a similar situation that was tracked down to being my oil pan seal. The bolts on my bravada's oil pan seem to like to loosen up. I thought I had a rear main seal leaking as well, but after investigating, I found 9 pan bolts loose. Tightened them down, but that only lasted for approximately 8 months. Now I need to get back under there, clean the oil out of the bolt holes and off of the bolts, and use some removable strength loctite on the bolts. See how that goes...

 

Before you start pulling things apart, take a mirror and have a look at the rear of the intake manifold, the rocker cover gaskets and the base of the distributor for oil leaks first. I always look for leaks up top first, 'cause gravity sucks...lol

 

I looked up top, But it's clearly the rear main. Minor oil seepage, Maybe a drop or two when I park it. Not really enough to move the level on the dipstick. Because it's so minor and I really don't want to have to pull the Transmission in November in Minnesota, Does anyone know of a decent stop leak I could try?

 

I wouldn't put stop leak in it. Ride it out until spring time then replace the front and rear main seal. If you are going to do it yourself without a lift, count on a weekend to do it in case you run into trouble. If things go well, you could get it done in your driveway in a day. My truck is never that easy, even at the shop, there's ALWAYS something that goes wrong. LOL

Just beware of doing the front seal, it's a real pain with a 4x4 getting to the oil pan bolts. Don't make my mistake and tear the oil pan gasket!