OK so here is my story.


My son bought a 2006 GS300, it is in great condition inside and out, it did have a code for the canister. no biggie.

Car drives amazing.

A couple of months ago, he says the old light came on. Immediately he pulled over and shut it off. I came, brought 2 quarts and topped it off ( only needed a quart.)

I do an oil change and it had a fair amount of oil in it.

a few weeks later he calls me telling me that it was acting funny he couldn't steer but he was able to get it into a parking lot before it died. He was only a mile from the house. I come over and discover tons of oil underneath and splattered over the alternator. it baffled me, but it had sufficient oil. it looked like the alternator was dead. I jumped the battery till it had enough juice, said YOLO and drove home as fast as possible to get it home. I did. I was going away that week to Vegas so replacing the alternator had to wait till i got back. Once I did it started up fine and I tested the battery and alternator with the scan tool. As i was testing it required to bring the engine up to 2000 rpm and again spewing oil. My buddy and his wife stopped by and he and I tried to figure out what was going on. It turned out that someone had replaced the AC compressor, they didn't tighten the front bolt and they left out the back nut, the compressor was off angle. This caused the belt to walk itself of and a whole rib shredded off and got caught between the balancer. we noticed that is where the oil was coming from. we figure it was the front case seal. I got a replacement one.

After I disassembled the it ( pulling the shredded rib that had wound its way around the front of the crankshaft) I saw the seal looked fine, the shredded belt had worn away some material from the front were the crank was, but nothing too bad. then I saw it. At about the 7 o'clock area was a small crack (see attached pictures) that ran up to the seal, I figure that's where the leak was coming from since that is where the oil pump is. That explains why at idle it would slow trickle but at normal engine speed it was spraying. I got a replacement timing cover finally and went to replace it today. I have the front of the engine dissembled, only thing remaining is to remove the cover and it dawned on me.as I looked at the replacement cover. There are two studs around the oil pick up area which i assume means that is where the pick up connects.

My question for anyone that has dissembled the area to replace the timing chain and did it themselves ( i think i know the answer but i am hoping its not) :

I am assuming I have to drop the oil pan? And is there an easier way to do this with a AWD model in the drive way?

Also anyone have any feelings about maybe just trying to fill in the crack to stop the leak?


At this point the having to drop the oil pan is my one fear since it doesn't look like its going to be easy.


Any suggestions, ideas, anything??


Thank you for your time.


Tony

 

\Alright after posting this i have spent some time looking at it. I dont think that is a crack. it has a "ridge" on one side and i think its aluminum from teh scoring the ribbed belt did.i pulled out about 4-5 inches of wound up belt rib from behind the seal when I originally took it apart. Whats to say that the piece of belt was putting pressure on the oil pump and causing the leak from behind the seal? Maybe just replace that seal, put it back together and check for leak?