My 5.2L is sitting with about 215K on the clock. I noticed that I see very light smoke if it give it some gas while sitting and idling. I'm definitely NOT a chimney stack on wheels going down the road. One thing that perplexes me though is I find oil on the ground, often after topping the oil off. I'm also going through oil at an alarming rate! If I go about a month without checking the oil, the stick is dry, and it's taking about 2 1/2 quarts to top it off. The leaking is odd because I can't see where it's leaking from.

I generally use 10W-30 Castrol GTX.

I'm changing oil and filter today. I thought I'd get a new PVC valve, new Fram filter and switch to MOBIL 1 High Mileage Synthetic 10W-30 oil.

It can't hurt to switch to synthetic, right? Any ideas about why I'm not seeing where the source of the oil on the ground is?

Thanks fellas!!

 

Well I drained the oil and while giving it more than ample time to drain, I went for the oil filter next. Needless to say I was astounded! I went to put the oil wrench on the filter and the filter spun freely. So much so that I almost could have blown on the filter and it would have unthreaded itself! So NOW I know where all my oil has been going!

This brings to mind though, a huge question for you guys. Do you have problems with either the pan bolts or your filters vibrating loose? Because I know that when I put an oil filter on, I never use a wrench. I always put it on hand tight with an extra bit of torque to be sure. The same thing happened to my bolts on the tranny pan. I've never touched them and after losing tranny fluid consistently, I had Midas check it out while I had the car up in the air and damned if every damn bolt was barely hand tight he said.

Just makes me wonder if I'm the only one who's experienced this stuff!

 

I have never had a issue with the oil filter spinning off or the trans bolts coming loose for that matter... I would be willing to bet someone changed the filter/fluid on the trans and torqued them tighter than a virgins a$$ and weakened the very soft aluminum threads. Only way to fix that is to install something like a helicoil in each of the thread holes or maybe thread locker on each of the bolts would do it just make sure its for high temp.

As for the oil filter "hand tight and then some" is probably not enough. You really should use a oil filter wrench to install them. BTW, i also would probably rethink using a Fram filter... We have a thread on that!

 

Thanks Old School, albeit a tad bit late. I just got in from finishing. When the guy tightened the bolts to the tranny pan, he said the tightened just fine. He's betting that someone just simply didn't finish the job of tightening them down. I've NEVER had an issue with an oil filter before coming loose and I always give a good hard hand turn once snug. I DID, in this case use the wrench as you mentioned. I read in a thread somewhere that was a couple of years old that Hydra, I think it was went to the synthetic I mentioned and used the Fram filter. Do you recall the main gist against using the Fram?

Thanks!

 

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ml#post2836764

 

as a general rule you should NEVER use a wrench to tighten your oil filter, the threads are relatively easy to strip out and the filters are SUPER hard to get off if you use a wrench to put them on, there is no need to even make them as tight as you possibly can by hand, as the filter boxes all say, spin em till the touch and then 3/4 to 1 turn more, i have NEVER had one come loose doing this with just a touch of oil run over the gasket

 

As I mentioned I usually never do more than hand-tight and this filter was backed off a GOOD several threads. I child could have unscrewed it with ease, so something happened.

 

I will say this puralator classic oil filters are my fav. good bypass valve and media and metal cartridge the pure one better media and even better bypass valve to force oil through the media, instead of carboard media cartridge that fram uses and frams less then stellar week bypass valve I use to be a fram fan but then had issues with my last engine and had found that fram was not doing what it was supposed to. Many threads against the fram oil filters abound the net for sure. Mobil one filters are good K&N good Puralator good WIX are Good. many others as well.

 

if youw ant a good read about oil filters here is a very in depth study
http://minimopar.net/oilfilters/index.html

and there is a thread on this very forum where alot of guys have cut their filters open (myself included) to see whats inside

 

I think your Fram filter backing off problem is more of a problem with the filter and not your application or tightening by hand. I've had Fram do that before in my younger days as well. It could be the structuring of the filter not holding it's rigidity and relaxing, could be the threading, could be the seal shrinking, or many other things inherit of a poor filter.

My local Walmart now sells Puralator which I use or I pick up the regular black Bosch filters as that's what is local for under $5 bucks. I could always go to K&M or Mobil but I'm not spending that much for the basic same performance, each to their own. I change my oil every 5k using Mobil 1 High Mileage Fully Synthetic 10W-30 oil, or once per year, even though I know I can go more mileage if needed to and have done the tests to back it up personally.

As for the transmission pan bolts. Most likely the person that last worked on it didn't torque the bolts correctly which can do a few things. If they keep coming loose here is an old school trick to ensure transmission pan bolts and oil pan bolts they stay tight and don't loosen;

Another hydra classic Old School Trick!

Clean the bolts threads with brake cleaner and a rag. Take Q-Tip's spray with brake cleaner and clean out the threads in the engine block or transmission block. Now place the pan back up and place in 4 screws one on each corner leaving them quite loose. Apply a very light coat of gasket sealant to the bolt threads, and replace all the bolts, don't forget the 4 corner bolts, and torque to the correct settings, and follow the torqueing sequence in the service manual.

The reason for this is it insolates and grasps the interlocking threads so they can't come back out, but at the same time is very easy to remove if needed with another cleaner sprayed Q-Tip or a thread die and rag.