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Danielle's 99 GT :)

danielle15 said:
I realized how easy it looked to change the oil
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If you can do all that maintenance on your car (even with help), changing the oil should not be a problem.
Im glad to see that you are taking care of her. GPF cliche, but it does looks nice and clean.:th_burger:
 
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Mine has a small leak as well. I don't have to add any oil. It's a very tiny leak. One day when it gets worse I will change it. Until then I wipe the pan everytime I change the oil or if I am under the car.
 
Never buy a pan from the dealer. Always post a wanted thread and likely you'll find the pan you need for super cheap money. yeah..even I have a spare on the shelf. However if someone is changing the gasket on it. They can put it on the floor and tap it back out with a block of wood. If it were actually dented badly.

The gasket on these sucks a little. It's not an impossible job, but it's a pain in the neck. (This is why I went aluminum pan, it's much easier to do if you ever need to reseal it.) Another thing that many people don't notice is ....does the leak appear to start seeping from the trans side of the engine. If it does, then likely it's leaking from the rear engine cover gasket. This gasket is behind the flex plate and quite common. I've seen more rear cover gaskets leak/seep than rear main seals.

On my Regal, it was an oily mess when I got it. I did the aluminum pan (engine sealant is it's gasket) and cleaned everything up. Soon after I was leaving a single drop in the garage most days. I smiled and turned the radio up to keep it from being an issue (drown out all problems with louder radio, it's the pro way to fix stuff). When I changed my transmission, I drained the coolant and oil also and changed the rear engine cover gasket and the rear main seal. The main seal is in the rear cover. Sure it wasn't any fun and it took longer to swap the trans. I also tried to remove the oil pan to reseal it, because...it seriously looked like the pan seal was leaking. I er uh..used too much sealant when I did it originally. Was smacking the pan with a rubber mallet, block of wood..you name it.. darn thing wouldn't budge. I put the bolts back in and hoped for the best. These days my engine/trans are 100% dry.

On my former Bonne..I chased an oil pan gasket 5 different times. Each time it kept leaking. When I cammed the car, I did the rear engine cover gasket. Never another seep, drip or thought of a leak.

Likely you do need a pan gasket, but don't assume that doing it would fix all your leaks.

Damn rear cover gasket is torqued to something like 2ft lbs.
 
If this counts for anything, all 4 sides of the pan were icky, so I kinda assumed that was the source along with dealer diagnosis.

How safe am I to keep running it like so as long as I monitor levels?
 
If you keep the oil level where it belongs..you are perfectly safe.

As for the all four sides...yup, I've been fooled by that too. Taht's why you gotta clean it and be all over that thing daily to see where it's really comin from.
 


Ok. I will monitor it closely.
It's got a plug/wire change, new brakes and sway bar coming its way soon.
So maybe after that stuff is done I can work on figuring out exactly where. I don't wanna get 1 thing fixed if its really 3 different things and its still going to leak.
 
Oh yay. Maybe it can just stay leaking then. Unless one of them needs to come out sometime.

Stupid motors and all of their stupid leaking possibilities.
 
Oxfire said:
Looks really pretty. Well done Danielle...Lovin' that whale tail ;)
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Thanks!
To look back at how she looked last year when I first got it, its not the same car.
I love the whale tale too :)
Totally changes the rear end for the better on these cars
 


How much oil you loose in a 3,000-5,000 mile interval?

I burn a quart of oil every 1,000 miles in the saab cause of the turbo loosing its seals, at around 2,000 miles into the oil change 2 of the 4 quarts it takes is gone and the timing chain starts to rattle and the lifters make noise, I drop in 2 more quarts and noise goes away in about 10 miles. So its livable. There are guys with the VQ35 in the maxima's that burn a quart every 500 miles. So I'm in the same boat, I have the TD04 turbo (which was $400) but I don't want to do it myself and the reason being is because at 11 years old and 162k miles all the bolts will snap (everyone says this on the Saab forums, they all break at that age it sucks). So I'm gonna hand it over because drilling and tapping doesn't sound fun...even the Saab guy who will be doing this for me, told me he will snap pretty much all the bolts so I'm looking at 4 hours for a turbo swap that on a new car would take only an hour. SO I know how you feel.
 
I don't personally do my oil changes, so I'm not sure how much is used or not used.
They are honest with me and haven't said that they noticed a loss, so I'm hoping its very minimal.
I get the oil changed religiously at 3-3,500 intervals.
I do check it from time to time and don't notice the level decreasing.

I'm not looking forward to having any of it done due to the expense it sounds like I will run into.

That's crazy about the swap taking that much longer. And broken bolts are never fun.
 
If this is really your only issue, then its worth to eventually see it fixed so you can enjoy the reliability and long life, these are great motors and can run a lifetime without much issue. Run while you can and watch it, when its time pull the trigger and get it done so you can keep enjoying the reliability. Hey your lucky, some guys have some many problems they don't know where to start LOL
 
Haha, you are right. I have been very lucky with it.
Only thing its needed is tires, LIM and other odds and ends but luckily nothing crazy expensive.

I'll start trying to put more aside for fixes and hopefully will be able to get it done sometime.
If it matters, the motor was replaced recently before I got it.
Would any of those main seals have been replaced at the time of replacement? (didn't know if they were standard things to do)
2 places looked at it and they both said oil pan, but idk if they could tell if it was coming from anywhere else as well.
When I look under there, the oil pan is the only thing I can see leaking, but then again I don't know my way around comfortably to say that's the only cause.
 
when the cars ice cold, take a paper towel fold it up and wipe under the rear valve cover with the towel, if it comes back wet with oil on it the valve cover is leaking.
 


Dave..that didn't cause an oil leak.

When I buy a W body, I clean it all down and look for any leaks. On my Regal when I thought the pan might be leaking, I said to myself..."it's probably that rear engine cover". For 1.5 years it put one or two drips on the floor each night that never amounted to anything. I happily let W bodies leak a few drops a night. No worries, no issues...totally normal and you should let them do it. Kinda like marking their territory. Heck..I had both pans leaking and never bothered to check the level, you guys are way ahead of me. If anything ever happened though.. either install is only 4-6 hours of time to me.

No mechanic is fixing the rear cover gasket or rear main unless you ask them specifically, they are amazing, or they are charging you way to much to begin with. Didn't do it on Dave's or Erich's when they were both out. Although Erich's new one looked dry and perfect.
 
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