Oil Leak problem...

Yellow XJNJ

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Trenton, NJ
My sisters best friend has a 90' Cherokee. I-6 Stock. She filled it with oil yesterday and this morning she was empty, all the oil was on the driveway, she put in a bit more and headed to Jiffy Lube. By the time she arrived, the oil was MIA. The guy at JL said "oil is leaking from everywhere," he filled it up and sent her off. Now the Jeep is sitting in front of my house and oil is dripping like a leaky faucet. Would anyone know where to begin with this one? Im not a mechanic, but I need to find some kind of starting point, cuz she wants to ditch the Jeep. So if I can find the problem and fix it, then she keeps it, or gives it to me.


TIA, Mike.
 
Well, at least your driveway won't rust!
If its leaking while not running, it would appear its dripping from the drain plug. If it leaks when its running, there are numerous suspects. Check the oil filter to be sure its turned down tight, check the oil filter base adapter, those o-ring seals can give out. Of course, the valve cover gasket is always suspect, it can leak all over the engine. And have a look at the rear seal, although it would have to be really bad to lose that much oil all at once. Sounds like its coming out under pressure. Lastly, check to see if your PCV system is plugged up, that can cause excessive crankcase pressure and fire oil out just about anywhere.
 
Another possibility at that age is that the oil pan has rusted out. It happened to my 87 - very messy. When the oil blows around it can be hard to localize the hole, but aside from a loose drain plug that's about the only thing I can think of that would leak standing still.
 
Seen something like that twice. Once it was an "EX" friend of my buddies who poured 2.5 gallons in and it was coming out everywhere. The other time the ccv was plugged so cool air was blowing in the valve cover but had no way out and the air and oil were coming out all around the valve cover.
 
extra filter o-ring? clean to see. . .

everything everybody else said is a good start...

after you check/do some of that stuff, put some cardboard or a big catch-all drip pan under the XJs engine and get yourself a few cans of GUNK engine-brite degreaser, (some diesel fuel in a pump sprayer will work also) and give the engine a good de-greasing.

***be sure to cover all electrical connections with plastic, or be real careful to NOT get them with the degreaser fluid.

give the whole thing a good bath, hose briefly with water to remove all the buildup of crap, and then wipe dry with rags.

now, add a LITTLE oil and try to see where EXACTLY it is coming out of. (I'm sure by now you have checked to see that there IS in fact, a drain plug and filter installed correctly on there.)

if there IS a filter on there, check to see (remove filter) that when the new filter was installed that it didnt go on top of an OLD O-ring from the old filter. sometimes the old rubber o-ring will stay stuck on the filter housing after the filter is removed, and when the new filter is installed over the top of it , it wont seal at ALL=HUGE MESS like u described (when engine is running).

HTH

good luck!

CaptTrev
 
Thanks for the suggestions, I will be checking it all out tomorrow (Monday) after work. I will report back and let you know how things turned out. THANKS AGAIN!
 
Finally got my computer down after it went into meltdown mode. So i checked out everything mentioned above. Turns out is the Valve Cover gasket. Its getting replaced in about 10 min. Thanks i appreciate the help.
 
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