common oil leaks

Are there some usual locations on the 98 riv's that leak oil other than the intake manifold? I'm new to the forum and just picked up a 98 from the original owner w/95,000 miles on it.The interior and driveline is almost perfect but he drove by the braile method.I think he dented or sratched every panel but nothing major.Runs and drives great.I love this car but has a couple of oil leaks!

look at the pan maybe he put some dents in her two

I did an inspection of the bottom side.It looked good except for the oil coming down from the backside of the engine.(Cat-side top)I checked the oilpan and valvecover bolts to see if they were tight.I changed the oil when I got it so its not the filter either.

if the oil pan bolts are overtightened it will leak. If i recal the torque spec is pretty low too.
it's an easy one to change and most likely is leaking a little oil if original.
valve covers dont normally have problems on these motors, though there is a recall for the front one on other 3800 cars.
LIM is not a fun job (just did mine a few months ago) and will take you half a day to do. (most of which will be spent scraping off the old gasket material and cleaning parts.)
Other than that, if there is still a leak you're in for some engine removal.

my rear valve cover has a slow leak, only one ive had

Thanks for the replies guys.If I have to guess is the firewall side valve cover is leaking some and or the intake manifold.I want to install new mani-gaskets and inspect the LIM so I will just bite the bullet and do the work once the weather is better.

Question...is the oil leaking where the plastic access panel is between the engine and transmission (driver side, close to the starter)? If the oil is leaking from up in there, you might want to consider how much money or how much time you are willing to spend. I've seen that leak in TONS of these cars and it's usually harmless. As long as the oil isn't covering the underside of the transmission or hitting the ground I wouldn't bother. There is a seal between the engine and trans that leaks, costs about $13, and requires trans removal to replace. Mine "seeps" from here, but until I have an excuse to remove the tranny I ain't doin it!

Abaddon wrote:

Question...is the oil leaking where the plastic access panel is between the engine and transmission (driver side, close to the starter)? If the oil is leaking from up in there, you might want to consider how much money or how much time you are willing to spend. I've seen that leak in TONS of these cars and it's usually harmless. As long as the oil isn't covering the underside of the transmission or hitting the ground I wouldn't bother. There is a seal between the engine and trans that leaks, costs about $13, and requires trans removal to replace. Mine "seeps" from here, but until I have an excuse to remove the tranny I ain't doin it!

When I had my transmission pulled to replace the TCC solenoid (it was stuck off) I had the shop replace that seal as PM... that was over 100,000 miles ago.

Albertj

I found my oil leak at the rear vavle cover.I noticed it first when I tuned the car up and installed a new set of spark plugs.The leak is not major just enough to get oil on the back of head around the spark plug locations.when installing my headers the leak location was confirmed.I will be replacing the gaskets when I install my new roller rockers and push rods.

oil pan gasket, and valve cover gaskets. those are the 2 main oil leak points on these engines. ive never heard of oil leaking from the LIM that usually ends up leaking coolant into the oil. i havent seen a 3800 yet that hasnt been leaking at least a little from the oil pan, so id assume your problems are coming from the valve cover gaskets. this would allow oil to leak onto the engine instead of the ground.

This is true and I did the oil pan gasket first because I could see that it was wet all the way around it and like you said it is almost a given that they leak. So I did it first b/c it was easy to get to and the upper end was gonna be opened up later when I was doing upper end modifications.

Don't understand why they had to remove the tranny for TCC solenoid....good thinkin replacing that seal tho! And yes, the LIM CAN leak oil to the ground. Mine was leaking down the front of the transmission and also pooling up on top of the manifold (with no mixing in coolant). LIM can cause a few different types of leaks, just depends on where the gaskets FA!L.