gooberwolf

I have the famous undiscoverable oil leak on my 2001 base manual Prelude with 87k miles. I have no mods to the car.
The tranny and downpipe is covered in oil.
I cleaned the cam seals and VTEC selonoid and no more oil coming from there.
Spark plugs are clean.
I am losing close to 2-3 quarts a month.
Antifreeze level is ok.
No oil around the valve cover gasket from the front or any burning onto the down pipe.
I see no major puddles in the morning.
Around the oil filter and oil sensor is wet with oil but the oil gets all the way to the tranny and above it.
Oil cooler area is also wet, but as stated above the wetness goes above that and all over the tranny.
I have done extensive searches on the forum, but it doesn't sound like there is a conclusive answer. Any help, ideas would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

mattsnooz

Try oil cooler O ring. Wash your motor either by hand or what ever (don't pressure wash unless you know what your doing) than try to watch where the oil comes from. If the motor is clean you can tell right away. Or buy the dye that goes in your oil and you can use a black light to see it. Thats a no fail solution.

Basically take your hand and rub it around the base of your oil filter (ofcourse when the motor is cooled down) and feel for wet spots. I bet its that thing (oil pedistal or oil cooler) that the oil filter is screwed into from where your oil is pissing from. The rubber seal o-ring is only 4 dollars at honda, and to remove the oil cooler you drain oil, remove oil filter, use a 32mm socket (I think 32mm someone correct me if my pot headed memory fails me) to pull the oil cooler off. Than you remove the rubber seal and replace it. Make sure you coat the new washer with fresh engine oil. Be carefull when installing, lots of people dont get the seal right in the grooves and they squash it making it **** oil even worse. The coolant lines may remain on (two hoses attached to base of oil cooler)

mattsnooz

Oh if not try the seal behind I think your vtec solinoid (cam cap seal??) I think its called. Its a seal thats behind this black circular plastic cap (atleast thats where it is on my h23a) Mine was dripping a bit out of there and would turn up on the bottom
side of my dust shield on the fly wheel.

InvaderTrax

Oil pressure sending unit is also a worth while bet. But really, the best way is to clean it, drive around of a few minutes, then check