i thought i'd tell my story. im the mechanic and i feel bad for the customer. the car came in for an oil change and they asked to check where the oil leak was coming from. it is a honda odyssey, 1999, 3.5 liter V6 with 53k miles on it. well as you may now these motors have a problem (im not sure how common) of the aluminum block cracking either by the water pump (passenger side), above the rear main seal by certain bolts (driver side), and in the valley under the intake between the two heads. well the oil was running all down the front of the motor and on top of the transaxle and there was puddles of oil in the valley. so i read up on the bulletin and find out what honda recommends to fix it. believe it or not honda recommends JB welding the cracks, okay, we get some JB weld. i start to pull the the motor apart and it turns out to remove the lower intake manifolds you must pull the head because the two center studs holding either side on are in the way (horrible design in my opinion.) short cuts i think, not enough room to double nut the studs, no room for stud removers, thought about vise grips, nah, thought about welding the nut to the stud and backing out the stud, nah. the job pays well so i decide not to take the short cut and i pull the head (great decision as it turns out you will soon see). this is the head towards the front of the car. i get it all apart and im about to remove the head bolts. the first one i try was finger tight, if that. and now i have opened pandoras box. the rest are torqued correctly. so it turns out the bolt that was loose (rear driver side corner bolt) was right next to the oil passage into the head. well obviously thats where the oil leak was coming from, and im damn glad i didnt try any short cuts to not remove the head. i inspected for cracks anyway inside the valley and found nothing. after pulling the head and inspecting i found that there was metal shavings inside the bolt hole and the bolt would not thread correctly. i tapped it but there was just not enough material to hold the bolt to torque spec. so we give the customer the option to try and repair the threads using a helicoil (im not sure that there are any specialized kits for this sort of thing) but we can not warranty it if the helicoil should back, leak, out or it doesnt work for some reason or another, or to replace the block. so they opt for door number two. and that is how a 1999 honda odyssey with 53000 miles on it needs a new motor. so what do you all think about that. any ideas on fixing the threads? damn i feel bad for the customer because thats why you buy new cars so you dont have to go through stuff like this. its hard to believe that that bolt was left loose from the factory, but i dont know why someone else would have been in there with only 53,000 miles and there are no records of the heads being removed. i did see other bolts cross threaded while removing the motor though so i guess anythings possible, sobotage? who knows. the car ran just fine as well, just leaked alot of oil. well thats that, i get to new put the short block back in tomorrow. i just thought i'd let all of you know in case anyone else has an oil leaking odyssey. have agood one.

swig

 

sucks to be them.

have you thought about paragraphs at all?

 

I witnessed an Odyssey with a similar problem at the dealership where I work. The engine had a coolant leak, sourced in the "valley" under the intake manifold, to the side of one of the cylinder banks. The customer brought it back several times complaining about the leak; the technician who finally tore it down used JB Weld (or a similar product) to seal it up. This did not solve the problem, and the next time the customer brought it back, Honda warrantied them a new shortblock.

I thought this was an isolated problem, but apparently there are others out there.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EGlovr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
have you thought about paragraphs at all?</TD></TR></TABLE>


: checks paragraph bulletin from honda :

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by beerz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> i get to new put the short block back in tomorrow.</TD></TR></TABLE>

have fun

I recently had the same oil leak as you described on a customers Odyssey, This mini-van had 23xxx miles on. So I go ahead and take the head off and as I'm taking the headbolt near the oil leak, it's like hand tightened and the bolt at the end had about 1 1/2 of the threads so as I proceed to the next bolts I find 2 more loose. this was on the back head (left bank). I replaced the short block which was still under warranty. to my opinion it could be defective blocks and/or assembly error. this job paid 14.5 hours flat rate, there's so many damn screws and bolts...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EGlovr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sucks to be them.

have you thought about paragraphs at all?</TD></TR></TABLE>
lol, the lines drive me nuts