I've got about 4000 miles on my '07' Ram now.. and twice there has been an oil drip on my garage floor about a half dollar in diameter. I crawled under and looked up to see where it it was coming from..It appears there is a vent tube coming down from left side of thevalve cover. Is it normal for oil to leak from this tube periodically? ManI hate oil leaks!!

 

that's a diesel for you. It's completely normal

 

Thanks for the reply.. it's disturbingly comforting to know it's suppose to happen..

How about this question..

Does the brand of oil haveanaffecton the dripping? I just did an oil change and went with Rotella-T. I thinkI read where Delo has anti-foaming additives? Does oil foaming contribute to the oil leaking? IfI have to live with the drips.. I'd like to minimize it as much as possible

 

that's probably why you saw a bit of oil. When you refilled it, you had a lot of oil sitting around in the valve cover and when you cranked it, the sloshing around sent some out of the vent tube. If you park on a very steep angle it will come out of the vent tube also. You shouldn't see it that often and the oil type wouldn't play any part.

What you can do is fabricate a catch can that mounts to the truck over the tube if you want or, just put something down in the garage that will obsorb the oil.

 

sounds like a mat on the garage floor would be the easiest option..

any chance of getting a whopper w/cheese out in front of the hoff?? lol

 

Could also be oil that came out when the filter was swapped.

 

Yeah, it's comming from the vent tube and it's completely normal. Some guy's have modified empty soda bottles to catch the dips and then just empty the bottle when doing an oil change ( not much in there ) Another fella made some sort of device that he wrapped an old sock onto and again, he just changed the sock at every oil change.

You could do any variation of the the above, or you could just put a mat in the garage and call it a day. Personally, i think I would modifya catch can of some sortrather than have an oily pan in the garage. Not much oil comes out anyway.

On another note, you mentioned that you use Rotella.I too use Rotella, and it's perfectly normal ( before you ask ... LOL ) for your truck to stink like oil for about the first couple of hundred miles after doing an oil change. This smell is also coming from the vent tube. I got around the smell by extending the vent tube under the truck past the cab and the smell is totally gone. Of course now the drips are comming from the back of my truck rather than the front.

Here are some pics ...



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[IMG]local://upfiles/42139/3E4D1E6329BE42829726B6A6C6B6A806.jpg[/IMG]

 

Actually.. the two timesI found the oil drips were before the first oil change.. so that rules that out. The vent tube hanging down definately has had some oil flow through it. The vent exits the valve cover which has oil pumped into it.. soI guess its not unreasonable to think it might drip once in awhile.. Being new to the CTDI just don't know what all to expect and was hoping this wasn't a problemI needed to get checked out under warranty.

 

Hey.. I did notice the smell of oil in the garage after getting home from the quicklube. Thought the guy must have spilt a few drops or something. I live in a small town and the only lube shop is a GM Quicklube. They do good work butI hope I'm not hurting the Rams self esteem taking it there. They wouldn't have filled the filter with oil before installing it hadI not said something. So now it's a request I'll have to make each time.

PVC and tie-wraps are the bailing wire and bubble gum of the future! If the smell bugs me too much.. I might have to try fabricating a vent tube extension.. thanks for the pics Mayfair

 

Mayfair, what have you done. Now, there won't be any lube for your U-joint ! [sm=icon_rofl.gif]

That's a pretty cheap and ingenious idea.