I have a small leak at the rear main seal on my 2002 S10 blazer 4x4. It drips maybe a drop or 2 a day. Pretty sure this is a PIA to replace. What am I looking at as far as $$$. This is not a job I have time to do my self. Should I let it ride until it really becomes an issue? I just barely rolled 114k and recently had the entire front end rebuilt due to rotten bushings and ball joints, gonna keep this sucker.

 

I'm having mine done in the near future and is oil pan gasket as well. The repair will be in the $1,200 range.

 

Thats what I was afraid of... Meh, well it's not too bad. Hell, I thinks it's been leaking for years like this. Over the last few years of doing oil changes I've noticed that there is always a drop of oil hanging from the oil pan plug but I never witness it dripping. lol. I guess we'll call this GM loose tolerances until it gets to be an issue

 

I'm wondering if it's cheaper to pull the engine or drop the transmission to do the rear main seal? If I could replace my oil pan gasket (2wd) myself, might it be cheaper to have the transmission dropped. Questions, questions...

 

Man pulling the engine would be epic just to do the rear main. I did the upper intake gasket a few years ago, took me 2 days of cussing and drinking beer..

 

My '02 4dr, 4wd Blazer has been dripping one or two drops of oil a day for about 5 years....sure makes a mess in the driveway!
I would say that dropping the transfer case and transmission are easier than pulling the engine out...but I have no experience of doing either on an S10 Blazer.

The advantage of pulling the engine would be that the front cover and oil pan gaskets could also be replaced along with the rear main seal. Otherwise the front diff has to be lowered in order to get the oil pan off.

I was actually thinking about doing this job over this past winter, but did not...this would be ALOT of work. I just put a drip pan in the driveway.

 

I had the transmission out of my 99 about 6 months ago, i changed my rear main while i was in there but It didnt really look like thats where it was coming from, i had some seepage around the pan gasket back there too so i cleaned that up really good and packed rtv around it, it still leaks, so obviously that didnt help either. Its a bunch more hours work to drop the front diff so you can get the pan off and do it properly so thats why i shortcutted with the rtv gooping but my point is, you may shell out 500 to 1000 dollars to get 20 bucks worth of parts changed and your leak may still be there, to top it off, the shop probably wouldnt refund your money because they performed the job you asked for. 2 drops of oil is a pretty small problem for the price if you ask me.

 

Funny thing, the Haynes manual says you don't have to remove engine to remove oil pan....

 

The joys of 4WD. Everything it 2x more, somtimes 10x. Oh well, the cost per drip ratio does not make sense yet.