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What is leaking?

mjamesb80

Member
Joined
March 28, 2010
Messages
31
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City, State
Mississippi
Year, Model & Trim Level
2002 Ford Explorer XLT
Can anyone help me figure out what is leaking?
I'll embed a video so you can see what I see.

I noticed a slow "oil" leak for some time now, but cannot figure out what needs replacing.

Thoughts?

 



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Sorry, can't tell what your leak is. My '02 Limited has had a slow leak from the Valve Covers and the Oil Pan for quite some time. Just enough to notice. Not enough to pay to get fixed.
 






Is this a 4.0 SOHC engine? If so, there's no rear timing chain tensioner on the driver's side (its on the front, inboard), so that leaves most likely a valve cover gasket leak. Also, the PCV valve connects to the rear of that valve cover (near firewall), so I suppose if that part broke or worked itself loose you could leak oil there?
 






I can second what Drewmcg said. Reach your hand (with glove if you don't want to get full of oil) back behind the driver side valve cover near the firewall. You should feel a tube coming out that goes down towards the head. If that is loose or otherwise not functioning then you need to replace it or screw it back in. It's called the PCV valve. Also, check around the valve covers for seeping there. Other than that I'm not sure where it's coming from. Take a video from the top end of the engine please. From my perspective it also looks like seepage around the oil pan, may want to check into that after cleaning the area up to make sure there isn't a secondary leak.
 






Here's the view from the top.

 






My money is on valve cover gaskets. And if they've never been done it's an easy and rewarding job for your peace of mind. I say do them anyway, and then just see if you still have a leak. Taking the covers off will reveal a lot of the area anyway.
 






in my experience, there are two significant challenges to this job. for a high mileage engine whose intake has never been removed. first, removing the torx bolts (8) -- especially the rear ones, under the cowl -- is tricky. be sure to vacuum/blow off with compressed air the heads to get all the crud out of the torx well first. torx bolts thankfully are harder to strip, but I managed to do so on one of these once (thank goodness on a front one, where I could drill off the head and removed rest with vices grips after I got the intake off). get yourself a good, swivel head 1/4 inch ratchet and a good selection of short extensions, including wobbles. take the hood off completely or tie all the way back.

the other challenge are the valve cover bolts, many of which had corroded on my 179k miles 4.0 SOHC. lots of PB Blaster and hammering on a 7 mm deep well socket when the stock 8 mm ones rounded off.

replace both valve cover gaskets when you have the intake off. note that you may need to replace some valve cover bolts, so be sure to have a way to get to the local ford dealership while open for those. same with some of the intake bolts (dealer only item). I replaced the rear ones on mine.

I generally like Felpro gaskets, but one of them is leaking already, so I'm planning to replace it with mahle/victor reinz on that side soon. I'm glad I replaced the worst bolts, and used anti-seize on the intake bolts when I re-assembled mine.
 






I generally like Felpro gaskets, but one of them is leaking already, so I'm planning to replace it with mahle/victor reinz on that side soon.
Are mahle/ victor reinz considered higher quality than fel-pro?

I was always under the impression that fel-pro was top of the line for us vehicles, and the mahle/ vr gaskets are for euro cars. But maybe it's a preference thing?
 






Don't know, but RockAuto had 'em on clearance, and the Felpro that I put in there is leaking, so . . . .

I suspect that the mahle/victor reinz are oem.
 






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