trooper498

do u have to take the header off to replace the oil pan gasket?

and

if a rear main seal is leaking oil would it be a substantial ammount?

ive noticed oil saturation around the seam of my oil pan and towarsds the bottom front of the engine. fyi no leaks up top, bibe dry. and also no drops of oil on the ground. thanks.

TomCat39

Depends on the car. You didn't say if this is even a Honda let alone year/make/model/trim and any mods.

Rear of the engine is transmission side, you are saying front of the engine. This detail does make a significant difference in the amount of work as well as cost.

You need to clarify which seal you suspect is leaking.

trooper498

its a 95 del sol vtec with a full exhaust. the transmission is to the side of the engine i thought? anyway the oil is around the oil pan towards the front bumper at the bottom of the engine. sorry for not specifying the make and model, that is important.

Former User

Stock? What engine?

White_EG1

First clean your engine bay. Then look for the leak, if you dont, the leak moves around and makes you have these speculations.

Sounds like dizzy o ring to me.

TomCat39

Getting rather technical here but the bumper side of the engine is actually the side of the motor. The front of the motor is the timing belt (drivers) side and the rear of the engine is the transmission (passengers) side. Our motors are mounted sideways with a transaxle. The "sides" of a motor still typically go by the original layout of the rear wheel front engine car where the crank pulley is the front, the transmission is the rear and the sides usually have the manifold(s).

If you clean the motor and the leak comes back on the bumper side of the oil pan and no where else, your oil pan gasket is leaking.

You won't really know until you clean it up and observe for a bit.

trooper498

i replaced the vtec solenoid, cam seal, dissy o ring and everything up top recently. ( turns out it was the cam seal). any ways i did clean the engine. and its clean everywhere except around the oil pan and towards the front bumper, its just wierd that im not gettn any drops in the ground and my oil level is staying the same.

hcv1122

For B and D series motors you usually have to remove the header unless your certain vehicle you can disconnect the rest of the exhaust from the header and be able to drop the oil pan. As for the rear main, sometimes they'll leak badly other times it'll just be seepage.

TomCat39

Not sure on the b-series but many of the d-series headers are a 2 piece design so you can just disconnect the bottom half of the header that goes into the cat below the car. Usually called the "A" pipe, which I thought was because it's two pipes into one resembling the letter A.

Anyways, you remove that section if your exhaust is setup like that and you can drop your oil pan with no issues.

trooper498

thank u. im hoping its not a rear main. ill change the oil pan gasket and see...

trooper498

ok, i have a greddy one piece header so it looks like ill be removing it to do this. thanks for the reply.