Stubborn oil leak

[Brad Clayton]

I recently had a doozy of an oil leak on a 2008 F-450 with a 6.4 and 175k on the clock. It turned into more of a stubborn oil leak to be honest with you.

 

The truck came to me from another shop that had been round robin with the thing. This came to them from their customer that had been dealing with it long before them. The thing was a mess, a hack had been into it previously and shit was just wrecked. I think it should be criminal for people to be allowed to perform such atrocities to a vehicle. I noticed pretty quickly that the oil drain back tube for the crankcase separator was in question due to its routing and contact with the a/c belt. The oil leak was originating from the front of the engine and to the right side some where. 

 

I replaced the tube and degreased the engine and sent it on it's way. It came back the next week with the same issue. Against better judgement (I told them the engine needs to come out as something is seriously wrong with it) I replaced the front crank seal. It still leaked. The customer came up to get some stuff out of the truck and told me that him and his buddy pulled the motor in his yard and had someone rebuild it. He then tells me that he put not 1, not 2, but 3 front crank seals in it trying to cure this oil leak. Well now we are onto seal number 4. I then pulled the front cover thinking that they wrecked the bed plate gasket, I mean why not, they wrecked everything else. No such luck and I had to put it back together with you guessed it, seal number 5.

 

I took it for a rip and it leaked. I cleaned it off and let it idle for 3 hours with not a drip nor drop of oil fell to the floor. Took it for another rip and it looks like I ran over a 55 gallon barrel of oil........i.e. it still leaks.

 

So up to this point I have been begging and pleading with all involved to let me pull the engine so we could quit dicking around and squash this thing once and for all. And up to this point many things have led me to the direction as to what is wrong with the truck, although I will admit I ignored most of the indicators.

 

#1. The customer obviously butchered this thing and anything he touched is called into question also anyone he knows that "rebuilt" the engine is subject to the same scrutiny.

 

#2. Lots of carry over oil in the charge air cooler system.

 

#3. No leak at idle........lots of leak while driving.

 

#4. A shit ton of front crank seals replaced and it still appears to be leaking at the front crank seal.

 

So the shop owner that is the middle man in this thing came by last night and we were brainstorming and he mentioned the turbos. I said they were kinda of difficult to check for a pushing oil concern, however I could do a quick crankcase pressure test. I really never thought to do one before because the engine only has 1300 miles since it was put back into service.

 

Well I did said test this morning and she blew an 11 inh2o at idle............at idle. She then proceeded to hit 44 inh2o before getting to 3000 rpm. It's kinda hard to believe that it wasn't popping the glow plug harnesses out of the valve covers. The customer declined to go any further and I think they know they got something out of whack in this engine from their previous repair.

 

So I put it back in working order and punted that bitch. 

[Alex Bruene]

I started thinking crankcase pressure as I was approaching seal #4...

[RyanG]

Shit, its just nuts and bolts anybody can be a mechanic.

[mchan68]

 

Well I did said test this morning and she blew an 11 inh2o at idle............at idle. She then proceeded to hit 44 inh2o before getting to 3000 rpm. It's kinda hard to believe that it wasn't popping the glow plug harnesses out of the valve covers. The customer declined to go any further and I think they know they got something out of whack in this engine from their previous repair.

Hmmmm......... I WONDER what this could be, that made them decline further repair/diag so quickly?