Oil Stop Leak additive, yay's and nay's?

[Guest bastaad525]

This is the backstory, skip the first 2 paragraphs if you just want to get to the actual question

 

Going crazy here with my engine which refuses to stop leaking oil. After being fully rebuilt both the front and rear main seals started leaking as well as the oil pan gasket... paid $400 to have them all three replaced, to find out the oil pan gasket was now leaking twice as bad as before the work! Was unable to get the guy who did the work to do a damn thing about it... thankfully Tim240z saw me in need and offered to help me out (as he usually does world needs more guys like Tim...). Spent a day at his house and found that the oil pan gasket was ripped and apparently the guy that put it in KNEW this as he had put a LOT of extra silicone right around that area to try to plug the leak (this after he decided to screw my oil pan by pounding it with a hammer). Anyways, we (mostly Tim) pulled and replaced the pan with a different pan and new gasket... and still I've got a little leak

 

At first, I found that we hadn't fully tightened the oil drain bolt and saw that it was leaking from there... tightened that down, thought that'd be it. Nope... still a few drops every time I park the car. Tim had warned that the silicone he used on the gasket may settle after a bit of driving and may leak a little, and to retorque the bolts. Did that, turns out they were all a little loose, tightened'em up, leak seemed to stop as not one drop more showed up on the ground (had some newspaper under the car) that night. Next day, dripping again. By this time I'm strongly starting to suspect that it may not be the oil pan at all, rather, that it is very possible that with the very low 'standard' exibited by this guy's work (the guy I paid the $400 to) that he may have somehow fuffed the rear seal... it's very hard to tell if the leak is coming from there or the rear of the oil pan.

So, I take it to a muffler shop where I know the manager, he lifts the car and checks the bolts again for me, says yep they were still a little loose (I didn't torque them too tight... got no torque wrench and was very afraid to overtighten them) and that to him it does look like it's leaking from the pan, but is possible it's leaking from the rear seal.

 

Anyways... maybe I'm being too picky about this... it's really a minor leak, but on a rebuilt engine, it just bugs the heck outta me. Tim240z has already kindly offered for me to swing by his house and have another look, but I may not be able to head that way for at least a week. In the meantime, was talking to a couple friends of mine, and they mentioned that they had used some of this Stop Leak stuff in the past on minor leaks and that it had worked like a charm. Neither recalled what brand they used, unfortunately but both did say they had their respective cars for some time afterwards and that the leaks never came back, nor did the stop leak have any apparent negative effect on their engines (clogging anything up or anything like that).

 

So I figured I'd ask the biggest community of car guys that I know I fully expect 20 replies telling me to avoid the stuff at all costs... but who knows, maybe 50% of you have used this stuff in the past and had it work for them... I'm willing to try it... it's only like $5... so long as it cannot cause any harm to my engine. I know the stuff is, at best, only good for helping small small leaks, which fortunately is all I'm dealing with now (maybe 2 or 3 drops whenever I park the car). Not sure what ideas Tim may have in mind for a possible cure, but I'm sure neither one of us would be interested in pulling that pan again! And if it IS the rear seal... FORGET IT!! Gonna be so pissed... I can only imagine how much work it would be getting THAT replaced, and paying someone else to do it again is not an option.

 

So what do you guys think? Anyone here use one of these oil Stop Leak products and had it work? Anyone know for sure that they could cause damage to something? Is it even worth a shot?

[auxilary]

look at it this way. stop leak products are designed to gum up crevaces and seal up leaks that way, correct? Well, it'll do that everywhere else, like your oil passages, etc. not to a severe extent, but not worth it.

[Guest bastaad525]

yeah I've thought of that, I've also heard that newer products are more intended to swell up gaskets or seals as opposed to the product actively 'filling up' leaks instead. That was the first thing I thought though... "hmmm what if that stuff sees the oil supply to the turbo as a 'leak'

[datsunlover]

I had a 200sx that leaked bad from the rear main.. I put in an aditive called Bardall (sp?) and ran heavy weight diesel oil (15W40) and the leak almost dissapeared. This was an 85' with 250 000 K on it, and they were NOT nice easy miles! I think what these additives do is thicken up the oil, making it harder to leak out.

 

PS: as for the moron who screwed up your oil pan/gasket in the first place, you should make life bad for him any way you can. Tell everyone he is a drug dealer and he touches kids or someting... Idiots tlike that should not be near ppls cars with tools!

[Guest bastaad525]

dude... seriously... You dont even know all the evil things that are going thru my head to do to this guy. Unfortunately I still believe somewhat in karma... though going by that belief I dont understand why f'd up stuff keeps happening to me when I haven't done anything wrong... Tim240z suggested that I may have been a real prick in my last life.... that's GOTTA be it... So I kinda gotta just let it slide lest I bring even more problems on my head. You did just remind me of something else I could try... I've been running Mobil 1 10-w30... I'm gonna switch to a thicker oil and hopefully that will help out with the leak a bit?

 

One thing that one of my 'friends' at auto zone told me, was that yeah these stop leak things do work for small leaks, they are good for old high mileage engines where seals or gaskets may have shrunken, dried and deteriorated... he said the stuff they sell there is meant to swell them back up... the downside he says is that after using them, they tend to dry back out rapidly and dry out even worse than when before using the stop leak stuff, causing small leaks to turn into big leaks. Yikes... I dont know where he's getting his info from though... that's the problem with things like this... 50,000 people who never tried one will tell you horror stories... but I got a few people who've tried them saying yeah they do work good... very confusing!!

 

Datsunlover - how long did you drive the 200sx after putting that stuff in there? Just wondering if you drove it long enough to see if the stuff did indeed end up making the leak even worse in the long run?