Anyone with info, please chime in. Problem: oil leak detected at the face of the tranny front/engine rear. Looks like rear main seal leak, judging from appearances. A date with the dealer has been set. Is this a common situation with the Ford engines? Is there a permanent fix?

 

Dark oil or pinkish trans fluid? If dark oil, it is probably the rear main . If pinkish, it could be a pump seal or input shaft seal for the trans depending on how these things are put together. Either way that sucks!!

 

if you do have a rear main leak it is very rare, our v8 engines are near leak proof. i have had 3 5.4's and never once had a oil leak. plus 10 years with ford i have seen very few oil leaks. the older 4.6/5.4 had some head gasket issues but it was resolved. i would be inclined to suspect a front pump seal.

 

I've had the rear main leak (5.4), a valve cover leak, and a leaking power steering hose.

 

i had an oil leak real early also. took dealership like 10 hours of labor to fix it but was all under warranty thank god. good luck!

 

Don't be to quick to worry. My truck started leaking it's first day. I was pretty bummed, but on a forum was mentioned that some of them leaked, but the leak would stop after the first 1000 miles. At 700 it stopped and never leaked again.
Lots of trucks have had a leak at first. Now if you are leaking with more than a couple thousand miles, it's dealer time.
Chris

 

I had an oil leak several month's ago. It seemed to be leaking from somewhere in the vicinity of the oil filter. I thought maybe the oil filter was not put on properly after a recent oil change. It turned out to be the oil pressure sender.

 

Do you think it stopped leaking because there was no more fluid left?

 

Very witty...

Actually unless it's a clean side leak, mostly confined to the oil sending unit, oil leaks will seldom use a measurable amount of oil.
A rear main seal, unless you have blocked the PCV system, will very seldom leak an ounce of oil in a thousand miles. Enough to make a spot in the garage, but never enough to need a quart added.

You can create an oil leak on almost any vehicle by putting in too much oil. Front and rear seals are not designed to stop oil that is above the level of the bottom of the seal from leaking, they are 'anti-splash' seals.
Chris

 

The leak was noticed on Saturday when the oil was changed. It's definitely motor oil leaking out somewhere on the back end, if not the rear main seal. So far, it's not enough to drip onto the pavement(not yet anyways). The truck has just turned 10k miles (not even 6 months of ownership); oil leak not detected at the first oil change.

 

The rear main seal in mine was leaking at about 3500 miles. It took the dealership three days to fix it and the first two were thursday and friday, so needless to say I was out of my truck until the next monday night. I have 13500 miles now and it hasn't started again(knock on wood). I hope it was just a bad seal and not some reoccuring disaster. Cuz there wouldn't be anything more fun than having to drop the tranny every 10,000 miles for a new rear main seal.

Carl

 

Just took my truck in for said leak. First time they just tried a new pan gasket and sealer. Sounds like the rear main as mentioned in here.

 

If you noticed this after you got an oil change, and it hasn't leaked enough to fall to the pavement, are you sure that it's even leaking? Or is there just some oil smeared somewhere?

 

That would be my guess. These oil filters are a pain in the **** to get to and get off. On my 4x4 it always runs a little onto the top of the front differential and steering rack. If you dont get it all off and then drive it, it all blows back along the side of the engine. That would be my first check.

 

I had a HUGE oil leak last year when I had my F150. I was doing an oil change and forgot to put the drain plug back in while I was putting oil in the truck!! I didn't notice until 4 bottles were poured in already, by that time the oil was running past my shoes!