2002 F150 XLT 4.6 V8 119,000 miles

Started smelling something burning every time after driving my truck but wasn't using oil. Finally got a chance to crawl under the truck and found an oil leak between the engine block and torque converter (mostly on the right side).


Sorry for the camera phone picture, I would have taken one from further away if I had the truck jacked up.

Oil is getting on the torque converter housing, starter, and exhaust (hence the burning smell). Can't pinpoint where exactly the oil is coming from but my oil level on my dipstick is fine. Actually looks like I'm a little overfull; possibly related to the leak? I don't drive very far to work and it's been extra cold this winter so I might be getting condensation in the oil. I wasn't sure if thinner oil might start a leak that will stop once I get fresh oil in there and we see warmer temps.
Not a lot of oil on the driveway so I don't think I'm losing much. A buddy suggested cleaning it all up and adding a fluorescent dye to the oil and seeing where it comes out with a black light.

Any ideas on where I should start looking? From what I've seen on the forums it could be:
- Rear main seal
- Valve cover
- PCV is clogged

I picked up the truck around 104,000 miles. I'm the second owner, no idea what kind of maintenance the first owner was doing. Pretty clean truck overall. Plan on doing all required maintenance and then some once it warms up. I don't really want to put any kind of stop leak in the oil, I'd rather get it fixed right.

Thanks in advance.

 

First make sure its not coolant. Take a look in the valley under the intake manifold for oil or coolant, both could be present there and run out the hole in the back of the engine valley and down the rear of the engine. The cam covers can leak down into that area as well. Remove the inspection plug at the bottom bell housing and see if there is oil in that area, which would indicate a possible rear main seal leak but where the fluid appears to be I doubt its a rear crank main seal. The passenger side cyl head has the high pressure oil passage that supplies oil to the cyl head from the block very close to the rear of that head. If you have had an overheat at some time that could be a problem as the head will tend to warp upward and allow oil from that passage to migrate out between the head and block (head gasket). I would clean the area as much as possible and keep an eye on it so you can narrow down the origin of the leak. Good luck.