Can anybody tell me how to tell if your oil leak is coming from the oil pan gasket or the rear main seal? I can see drips of oil around the pan but you can also see some oil around the rear main seal, any ideas or tricks to tell?

 

Spray off the pan/underside of engine and drive. Pull the rubber inspection plug from the bottom of the transmission bell housing. If it is oily in there chances are your rear main is leaking. My rear main seal leaks a little but I live with it for now.

 

The pan gaskets ford used in the modular is pretty heavy duty rare for it to fail. If you have a ton of miles the bearings maybe worn causing the rear main seal failure

 

on my truck, i had an oil leak for the longest time until i took it to ford for numerous things under warranty, and the leak wound up being the timing chain cover gasket. my truck is an 08 screw, 67k miles.

 

I just had my 97 F150 looked at for a oil leak myself. Found out it's the head leaking oil. $1500 to repair it. "Big Red" has 170k on it and in great shape, but what to do? "They" say it's only a $3000 truck and put another 15 to 2000 in it and still have a $3000 truck...Another thing, has their been any recall's on this problem? Ive heard a lot of people has this problem with the 4.6 W engines.

 

The head gasket leak is common unfortunately for all the early modulars. There isnt any recall thats going to cover a 15 year old engine with a 170k on it. The leak will not hurt anything so if its not yet major just ad oil once in a while. If you did the repair your self if could be done for around $300