72MachOne99GT

Wish I could help you out man.

I know that during my head install I noticed there are 3 main places you could be leaking oil that would be a pain in the butt.

Timing chain cover/head gasket/valve cover gasket..

I would not imagine though that the timing chain cover would randomly start leaking oil.

Until you find the source of the leak, there's not much else we can do to help.

djay

Are the Timing Chain Cover/Valve Cover gaskets doable for a REAL noob? Like is it a chiltons/haynes manual sort of thing? If it is I'll definately pick up a copy and attempt to do them.

72MachOne99GT

Well, I did a cylinder head replacement, actually finished up about a week and a half ago, and the most difficult thing I'd done previously was an oil change/spark plugs/fuel filter.

I wouldn't start thinking about needing to tear it down though till you can diognose.

Like I said above too, it's unlikely that either of those (being the timing chain cover or valvecovers) would randomly start leaking oil.

djay

Yeah, I'm just confused as to how the head gasket can be blown but there is no coolant in the gas and no exhaust smoke =\.

djay

Talked to my mechanic, said it's the head gasket on the passenger side toward the rear. Sorry I'm not mechanically inclined, thought that might help a bit. The leak makes itself all the way down to the transmission and drips off of the there if that helps as well. Thanks

98SN95

tell them to do the valve cover gaskets first, these motors do not blow headgaskets and run fine. how many miles?
?

djay

88,000 miles on it right now. I haven't had any over-heating problems since I've bought it so I'm not really sure what I want to do with it! Sell the car? Fix it?

Edit:

Are the valve cover gaskets something done at home with a Chiltons manual? I'm probably going to do it myself since I'm on spring break and have the rest of the week.

98SN95

i would go ahead and do the valve cover gaskets, they could definitly be leaking at that mileage, it should not be that exspensive, but doing a head job is, especially if you dont need it, you said you had to tighten a valve cover bolt, the gasket could have been leaking and when you re-tightened the cover the gasket split.

MJH78

have a pressure test done. they blow pressurized air in the spark plug wells with the radiator cap off and if air starts bubbling out of the radiator, then blown head gasket. dont just take someone's word for it with them simply looking and not doing any tests. there's some shady people out there that will tell you head gasket when they know it's valve gaskets and charge you $600 for changing the valve gaskets.

djay

Alright, I'll defintately try to have that done as well.