Common ENGINE leak? FX35 2008

motesound

motesound

Member
Gentlemen,

I did search the forum extensively before posting this.

Could not find anything with visuals so here I am posting my (hopefully casual) engine leak.

A little history:
2008 FX35 AWD
300K
Oil dripping - 5 years now. Slowly increasing in intensity over time. By now got an ugly oil spot on my driveway.
Stupid me but got to admit I've been scared off by mechanics and dealership service manager about how the fix is just so much work and money it made me basically ignore this issue while planning to upgrade the car year after year.
Now with COVID I have time freed up to work on my car. And so I started looking into this.
The simple look inside engine bay reveals the obvious leak around top of engine immediately (was never really carefully looked at before...)

SO
First things first
VALVE COVERS
After reading through the threads I am getting ready for the valve covers replacement. Looking for the deal and supplier. Z1 seems to be the choice.
Will do this no matter what. Cause Im sure it's leaking

HOWEVER
Have suspicions about potentially 2nd leak. Not sure if oil from covers would have made it to the front like that since valve covers are sitting further behind

Wonder if this leak is looking familiar?
If not then fingers crossed its leaky covers and no more then that. Then I am going to proceed with that first and see if that did it.
If it is some other gasket and this leak is obvious and known then it be great to get all the parts ready and get it done all at once. That's the point here...

I won't be really surprised to have 2 leaks going or smth.

Motivated to fix them all! Love my FX and planning to keep it! Appreciate the feedback guys!
 

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It's sort of hard to tell from your pictures, since the first three look more like dried oil but the last one is an obvious leak. The first three pictures are of the front of the engine, but the last picture makes it look like the leak is more towards the middle/rear of the engine.

My suggestion is to clean everything off as best as you can, let it dry out, then take a drive. Afterwards it should be more obvious where the leak is coming from. This is a situation where you want to take things slowly and do your diligence, otherwise you may end up doing more work than you need to do or working on parts of the engine that don't need to be messed with.

If it were me, I'd clean up the engine/undercarriage then check it out to verify the valve cover leak is in fact the culprit (highly likely). If you can't tell after cleaning it up and driving it I would install the valve cover gaskets, clean, and inspect again.
 
Yeah you are right about that for sure. Don't want to overspend and overdo here.
It is correct that the oil on the engine is dry and underneath it is soaking wet in oil.
Gonna wait till it starts getting warmer and drier here in Toronto then wash it up, clean it up and observe.
 
Oil cooler gasket would be my guess, pretty common for it to leak, but I would imagine that would have been noticed before when changing oil
 
J3FF3R$0N said:
Oil cooler gasket would be my guess, pretty common for it to leak, but I would imagine that would have been noticed before when changing oil
Click to expand...

Isn't the cooler at the front of the engine though?
I imagine the engine cover would have to be all covered up in oil in this case.
It does have some but does not seem to be soaked in oil as much as the area behind the engine does.
Anyway gonna take a look during the oil change soon.
 
According to the manual here is the list of potential areas to look at:

upload_2021-1-28_15-35-32.png



I wonder if any of those timing chain covers and mating surfaces are to be blamed in my case. This is where the dry oil seems to be coming out from.
 
motesound said:
Isn't the cooler at the front of the engine though?
I imagine the engine cover would have to be all covered up in oil in this case.
It does have some but does not seem to be soaked in oil as much as the area behind the engine does.
Anyway gonna take a look during the oil change soon.
Click to expand...

Yes its at the front, I saw the pan in the last photo and didnt realize that was the trans pan on my first look
 
Mine had a leak at the variable valve timing control solenoid. Leaking from the front just above the valve cover gasket. Here's a vid for checking:


I don't think the valve covers generally leak other than in to the plug wells. Mine had that as well.
 
I think the dry spots at the front of the engine are a bit of a red herring. I really wouldn’t even worry about it since it isn’t wet. That is s lot of oil at the rear though. Prior to cleaning anything, have a look at the back of the engine to see if you can follow the wetness up to the source. It should be fairly easy to see where it is coming from. With that much oil I would be more inclined to think oil pan gasket or oil drain plug. Are you sure it is engine oil, it could also be a power steering leak.
 
IlovemyFX said:
Mine had a leak at the variable valve timing control solenoid. Leaking from the front just above the valve cover gasket. Here's a vid for checking:

I don't think the valve covers generally leak other than in to the plug wells. Mine had that as well.
Click to expand...


Nice videos man!
Seems to be a quick and easy fix so I might as well get a couple of the solenoid gaskets too.
 
Denis McGuire said:
I think the dry spots at the front of the engine are a bit of a red herring. I really wouldn’t even worry about it since it isn’t wet. That is s lot of oil at the rear though. Prior to cleaning anything, have a look at the back of the engine to see if you can follow the wetness up to the source. It should be fairly easy to see where it is coming from. With that much oil I would be more inclined to think oil pan gasket or oil drain plug. Are you sure it is engine oil, it could also be a power steering leak.
Click to expand...

Yeah seems dry and still haunts me what was the origins of that.... but you are right I am not so concerned on that area but rather undercarriage first. Gonna lift it up during oil change and take a thorough look. We are in the midst of winter so any washing cleaning is put off for now anyway.

So x2 points of inspection to add to the list:
Oil Pan Gasket
Oil Drain Plug
 
motesound said:
Nice videos man!
Seems to be a quick and easy fix so I might as well get a couple of the solenoid gaskets too.
Click to expand...
Just so you know, the only reason I noticed the leak was because there was a little oil building up on top of the underside engine cover near the front of the engine. It was then tracked back to the top of the engine near the front. At first I thought it must be coming from the oil cooler gasket but that is down low on the front of the engine.
 
Front main seal becomes common at high mileages. It would be wet under the main crankshaft pulley and gets the lines below it wet as well.
 
Update.

Visited the shop today where the owner specializes in Nissan/Infiniti since late 80s. In hopes of determining the leak origins plus got some weird noise/vibration.

Car lifter up, undercover removed and inspected.

Potentially 3 points of leaks:
Oil cooler Oring - confirmed
Right side Valve Cover - very likely.
Both Camshaft Position Sensors

Now the last one is news to me.
Never replaced those so at 300K (km) they are still original. Pricing from the shop (parts+labour) seems to be high so will do it myself if I decide to. Based on Youtube videos it is doable without much sweating.

Wonder if anybody can comment on that? Anyone had those leaking oil?
Thanks for all the feedback guys

By the way, Oil Pan, drain plug are fine.
 
Start off with the oil cooler O-ring since that is the easiest. Once that is fixed, clean off as much oil as you can and monitor for oil drips. There are lots of videos for the camshaft sensors. I would leave the valve cover for last.
 
camshaft sensors are relatively easy to change out, they just have some tight clearances for getting your hands/tools to their location. I changed one out on the side of the highway once when one went totally dead and the car wouldn't run... took about 45 minutes (first time doing it, and on the side of the highway...).
 
Sounds like you had new sensors ready with you anticipating them to fail? Or how exactly that happened that you had it in the right time (in the wrong place)?
 
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