Greetings,

In short: I'm losing oil and can't find any evidence as to where, suggestions?

Full story: Sixteen days ago my father and I finished a week long job of replacing the rear main seal and the timing chain guides (as well as gears, chain itself, etc.) in my 1983 Toyota, 22r pickup. FYI, I had a leak that was so bad that we ended up replacing the clutch. Here's what we pulled out..... (Also, thanks to 4crawler; we used your write-up on the timing chain install, was extremely helpful, Thanks!).



Beforehand I was losing roughly a quart a week. The first few days afterwords I didn't notice a drop in the oil level, so I assumed we had fixed the problem. Well, a couple days ago I went out and checked it again, only to see it barely reaching the dipstick. After a few choice words, I began looking for evidence of a leak. Nothing at the near bell housing indicating we messed up the seal install somehow. Also checked the engine compartment, and saw no signs of a leak anywhere. I park in the same spot in our driveway, so I did check for a puddle. I found one, but turned out to be a newly-leaking t-case That's a different story. Upon starting, revving, or hard acceleration there is no visible blue smoke (or any color for that matter). But, that's the only thing I can imagine that would cause this. I did some reading and found that my cat. may be burning the oil before it reaches the exhaust.

Any ideas what could be causing it and/or solutions? I found an old post about checking the EGR and PCV valves, could this help?

Also thought about the burning, looked into "Engine Restore." Found a couple of positive posts, but the overwhelming majority was against it.

Since we *thought* we had fixed the leak I took the opportunity to switch from 10w-30 Dino-oil to Mobil 1, synthetic (research on here convinced me it was the best choice). I chose the normal type, and picked 5w-30 (all Wal-Mart had at the time). After some searching, it seems that bumping that up to 10w-30 or 10w-40 may help the situation? Mobil also sells "high mileage" oils, but I'm not sure if that's a marketing gimmick or something to honestly look into.

I know this may end up with me getting a rebuild ($$$$$) but hopefully I can find another way out, or at least stall the inevitable.

Thanks to all, if any further information is needed I will be watching this thread closely.

from the looks of the old seal, you needed a speedy sleave on the crank.
I would say that the new seal is also leaking, you just are not seeing it yet.
sorry man

The speedy sleave I can understand, but find it hard to swallow that the brand new seal is already bad. Granted I'm usually wrong, and I'm not saying you are, but I don't see how that can be.

Three side notes:
1) Motor's got 266k on it.
2) When at idle, my pressure drops really low, almost pegs the gauge, but while moving it's fine. I'm assuming it's because I'm running 5w-30 in 90 degree weather.
3) Except for the missing oil and the oil pressure problem, the motor runs beautifully.