sdb90

my 95 90 is well maintained. I saw a bunch of oil dripping from off the bottom of my lower oil pan by the drain plug. I dropped the lower pan, cleaned/sanded the mating surfaces, hot tanked it, replaced gasked, and even high temp siliconed to make sure. Then changed oil and filter. I thought for sure I solved my problem until the next day when I noticed more oil dripping from the same spot....its seems to be coming from somewhere up above/ landing on the upper pan and dripping down the side to the lower pan. It was bad enough that after driving around and coming to a stop, I noticed smoke coming out from the side of the car. after inspecting, It was oil that had blown back onto cats and exhaust pipe and was smoking. Any suggestions. Thanks

cbkenison

it might be combined with leakage from the drain plug...

dragon-ryder

other than that I would check your upper oil pan gasket if you don't find the problem around the heads. There's always your front main seal and rear main seal in that area too.

Audicratic/eldopa69

perhaps the valley pan gasket needs replacing.

sdb90

are there extertnal bolts? I have only removed the lower pan thus far....complete overhaul is in the future, but on hold for now since I went back to school. Not so easy to check those seals, is it.....gonna be a bitch, no?

dragon-ryder

you need to remove the lower oil pan first and then the upper oil pan because the upper pan has fasteners both inside of it and outside. I can check for you for sure on wednesday though if you can wait

dorsal900

My 1996 A4 was leaking quite a bit of oil from an unknown/unseen place (the belly pan was in place and I was too lazy/busy to take it off. Valve cover gaskets had been replaced, oil pan had previously been retorqued to specs, still leaking. I had been running RotellaT oil in the car. Well, after I ran out of RotellaT, I used some Mobil 1 High Milage oil that I had on hand for my other car, needed almost a quart. Surprisingly, the leaking stopped, probably due to the seal conditioner in the M1 HighMilage.

I'm not sure what everyone's take is on this oil, but it certainly appears to have worked on my car. Last oil change I put a complete fill of it in the car, no leaks yet.

moribundman

That doesn't really work that well for static seals and gaskets like oil pan gaskets.

On the other hand, a cam or crank seal, which seals against a rotating component, may seal much better once cleaned from gunk and once a seal conditioner makes the seal more pliable (and swells it a little). High mileage oil contains more of those seal conditioners than do other oils, as you have already implied. Valvoline MaxLife 10W-40 is another high mileage oil that works well in the 12v.

dorsal900

sdb90 wrote:

its seems to be coming from somewhere up above/ landing on the upper pan and dripping down the side to the lower pan.

I wasn't sure where my car was leaking either but had some clue that it could have been the front main seal - which does get addressed by the seal conditioner in high-mileage oils. It's certainly worth trying a quart of Valvoline High Mileage or some other similar oil vs. pulling the oil pan again!!!