so I got my engine rebuilt about 2 years ago, and haven't ran it yet. slowly slaving away. anyway, today I got all my oil lines hooked up and decided to see if I could get oil to run through the system and check for leaks.

everything looked good until I got under the car, and saw a small puddle under the bellhousing question is, besides the rear main seal, is there any way for oil to get into there? I doubt its the oil pan as I sealed it up with lots of silicone, and it isn't pressurised. cranking for 15-20 seconds gives an oil puddle the size of softball diameter (with the clutch view port open) in about 2-3 minutes. just takes longer if the view port is on to drip through.

and its not the tranny, as there isn't fluid in it yet. what do ya think, rear main? (it's new)

 

The only options it could be is what you have mentioned or rear turbo oil inlet, oil cooler line under the oil filter, or your oil pan. Like you said, you can rule out the oil pan if it only leaks while cranking. The other options I mention would probably also be more likely to appear to be leaking around the motor mounts. You've mentioned that the leak is under the bell housing but are you sure it coming out of there?

 

ya, after opening the view port, you can feel oil and watch it drip out of the bellhousing.

 

Who rebuilt the motor? Was a new rear main seal used? Also, there's a thin rubber o-ring that goes around the backside of the rear stationary gear, on the surface where the stat gear mates to the housing. I hope you're not missing that......

 

yes on the new rear main seal. if you pull the seal out, would you be able to see the rubber o-ring you're talking about?

 

No, you would have to pull the rear stationary gear out to see the O ring.

 

well, its not oil thing is, new oil looks alot like brake fluid when sitting under the car there. so my slave cylinder exploded.

I installed a stainless clutch line recently, and have not bled it yet. I heard once that pushing in the clutch pedal during this period could push air into the slave and cause something like what we have here. does it make sense? I had it installed in the tranny, but I think I did kick it a couple times getting in and out of the car, and had to pull it up off the floor. has this happened to anyone?

so how do I fix it without this happening again? here's my plan. get a new slave, install it with the bleed screw OPEN this time. then press the pedal until fluid comes out the nipple, and proceed to bleed the air out from there. sound right? I have an exedy twin plate installed, you don't think it's overpowering the stock slave do you? I know its alot of questions, thanks for any help

some pics of what I found:

 

what is going on. I put oil back into the motor, and unhooked a few oil lines to see if I have any oil pressure comming out the block. I hooked up the starter with the power wire and the little tab that goes there, and was going to crank it over and see what I get. well after a few seconds of cranking, I saw a little smoke comming up from where the starter sits. ok.....so I check it out, and don't find anything until I touch the stainless clutch line I installed...yeah, she's cooking. so I look aroun for any power wires that could be touching, and find nothing. it is rubber coated anyways (which is where the smoke is comming from.) how could this be?

the broken slave is hanging down there still, but I made sure it isn't touching the starter at all, or any wires, only resting against bellhousing. try to crank again and the bastard clutch line gets hot again! mind you only the SS part, not the regular hard line parts!

a strange symptom is: I had the battery charger on for a while getting the juice flowing there for a couple hours. after that, the engine cranked even slower than the previous day...strange. I thought maybe there was some resistance somewhere, either power going somewhere it shouldn't (which I think it is due to a hot clutch line), or maybe some other mechanical resistance I'm not aware of.

ideas anyone???

 

Bad ground from engine to battery - the clutch line is trying to substitute for that.

 

exactly what I was thinking today. what threw me off was that this didn't happen the previous day when I tried the same thing. I think the difference was my oil cooler SS lines were getting the job done before, but I was going to pull the motor so I unhooked them. woops. it has been way too long since the motor was in, I can't remember where any of the grounds go.

 

thats probably why it was cranking slower huh? insuficient ground... just call me noob.

 

Noob