What's that oil covered dripping thing under my alternator?

BikerFry · Jun 7th, 2004, 10:51 AM

93 GA16... The thing with a pulley on it directly under the alternator is the water pump right? Any ideas where the oil leak would be that seems to have it covered with motor oil to the point that it's dripping slowly? It seems to have the most oil on the pulley side and the back side (closest to the firewall.) I can't tell for sure if that's specifically where the leak is coming from but is there any place near there that's prone to oil leaks? Thanks guys. I got rid of my 92 F150 parly because it marked territory every time i stopped with a nasty oil leak, I don't want my Nissan to do the same...

astreamk1 · Jun 7th, 2004, 11:34 AM

check your front main seal. Behind the crank pulley. they seem to be prone to leaking and it gets everywhere.

T pat · Jun 7th, 2004, 01:22 PM

I had a similar problem with my '95 200sx SE. I had just changed the oil pan and I was still loosing motor oil like crazy. On closer look the oil was all over the engine bay and the whole under body was covered in oil. First I was looking at possible place for the leak with my mechanic and we didnt see any place in specific since the whole egine was covered,. After looking at it for some more time he suggested that we replace the crank shaft seal. When he showed me the old seal it was solid as rock and it had lots of cracks. Go figure. The seal was something like $15 CAN and it took about an hour and half to get the job done. Now comes the fun part; washing the engine bay to remove the oil.

Hope this helps.

BikerFry · Jun 7th, 2004, 03:06 PM

Are those seals you guys are talking about 1 in the same or are they 2 different seals? If you felt like giving me a rough idea as to what is involved with changing them it would be much appreciated. Thanks a million.

astreamk1 · Jun 7th, 2004, 03:10 PM

we are referring to the same thing, the front main seal. Both of my GA16I 's have leaked there. Not too big of a deal to change if you are somewhat mechanically inclined. on my motor you take off the passenger wheel, wheel wheel liner, both belts, remove the crank pulley , replace the seal and put it all back together. Only problem I had was getting the center bolt out of the crank pulley. Other than that, not too bad of a job. The part is not very expensive either.

lshadoff · Jun 7th, 2004, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BikerFry

Are those seals you guys are talking about 1 in the same or are they 2 different seals? If you felt like giving me a rough idea as to what is involved with changing them it would be much appreciated. Thanks a million.

They are one and the same.

Check out this thread.

Lew

BikerFry · Jun 7th, 2004, 03:26 PM

Thanks guys, a little searching turned up a s**tload of front main seal threads describing the same problem as mine. Looks like I'll replace that and see if that stops it. From what I've read, once I get the pulley off the seal will be exposed right? And the underdrive pulley is the lowermost?

Forgive me if I ask a bunch of basic questions. I don't like going into a job ignorant. Ever since I killed my ECU (car wouldn't STOP running) when I sparked a pair of wires while goofing around with a tach, I like to know exactly what I'm getting into before I start a job. Of course, at least I get to say I've got a 900 dollar tach...

Oh, and not that I couldn't find it by searching the forums or my Haynes manual (maybe, it's been my experience that my Haynes manual is close to useless) how do you take off the belts? I could figure it out myself but like I said, I like to know everything before I start a job and it could add to the thread in case it gets searched up in the future.