Car is seriously hemorrhaging lots of oil! Take a look at this picture! Opinions?

Originally Posted by dmax

Crocs, ftw, also in all the colors of the rainbow!

Joking aside, that doesnt look like oil to me or PS fluid, and if it is up front near the expansion tank, all I can think about is there is a crack, check your coolant levels and what not.. That also means to me its not condensation as it happens near transmission in the center of the car..

If that was PS fluid you would have definitely noticed, washer fluid is easy to figure out.

Looks like transmission fluid to me. Can you get under the car and check?

Del,

If you're going to do this yourself...still not clear on whether someone has your car, but if you are, and aren't that far from NYC, I'd be happy to find time to bring my xl50 along with my taste buds and figure out what that is.

BTW, water would not necessarily dry up overnight, so I haven't ruled out the best for you...just condensate...and fanatic's style humiliation!

Seriously, though, I'd be happy to try to make time for you and help if I can.

please look at this video and give opinions:

great vid



4 and 5 are oil cooling pipes from transmission, one in and one out as you see in diagram (sorry I said expansion tank because I thought you had manual) you showed them under the car.





You were pointing at number 10 and 11 the connection from power steering to coolant thank, the fluid goes through the cooling coil and goes back into the system, just like the tranny.



Keep us posted and wish you luck!

Wow del with that amount of fluid coming out you would think that if it was coming from the power steering unit that it would be bone dry by now. You have looked at the level right? To me, as clear as the liquid is, just playing the guessing game here, it looks like ATF and the only two places it can come from are the power steering or the transmission.

You could put some rags behind what your working on to protect and spray down all the leaky oily hoses with brake clearner and wipe it down until every thing is back to a non-gloss black appearance and then drive it around the block and take another look.

GL

Olaf, if the hoses and fittings that you're pointing to from 2:10 onward are leaking, then there's a chance that you're leaking transmission fluid... I agree with TitaniumCranium in that if all of that fluid was PS fluid, it would've probably been dry by now. I would be careful driving the car until you can confirm that you're definitely not losing ATF from the tranny itself.

Yea, nice vid, Olaf. Would watch again!

Some thoughts:

If there's any fluid at the very top of the hoses coming from the PS reservoir, then you can either replace both hoses or just trim off the top 1/2" of hose, push it up a little and install new screw clamps. Same on the larger of those hoses where it meets the PS pump. Fluid will also drip from reservoir cap, catch the 'mesh' cover on the larger hose and follow it all the way down.

Where the PS hoses meet the two connections next to the radiator, they're not going into the radiator, just into that "U" shaped cooling pipe.

I don't think all your fluid leaked from any of these hoses, but, coming out of the PS pump, it'd be high pressure, and if any of your crimps on the crimped hoses has failed, then, when using the Power Steering, you might see a greater volume coming out. So, you might try starting the car, having someone turn the wheel while you look for a more active leak. (Make sure she doesn't put it in drive!)

I'm not sure exactly how the bracket on the ET is different for the auto trans, but I know it is...and you have a trans. thermostat too iirc. Maybe you should have her try putting it in drive, but remind her to keep the brake on...but I don't know if that would attenuate the rate of leaking you get or not. As you said, it will pool on underskirt and then drain off on a sloped driveway, so again, this might be accumulation from some period of time...maybe, don't know if your car had been parked on the same slope the night before or not.

Now you seem to be totally after a PS fluid leak, so I'll just remind you nicely to be careful about assuming anything...one fluid, one source, etc...though it probably is.

If PS, then from what I hear, refilling and bleeding is easy...just turn wheel to full lock a few times on both sides and keep reservoir filled as you're doing so.

Good luck! (By the way, you know, you could have easily opened up the trunk to video your battery...you know how I love looking at them!

Doug

The Power Steering Reservoir was actually on level and filled when I checked and I don't think the guy at the shop would've filled it. Mmmmmmm.

I'm getting all those hoses replaced today and keeping my fingers crossed that it is not the tranny that is the problem

Originally Posted by TerraPhantm

Something not getting metabolized doesn't mean it'll stay in your body for years. There are plenty of things that we can injest or inhale that just pass through. Ethylene glycol is water soluble - Assuming your kidneys are doing their job, you'd probably just piss it out if it weren't metabolized into the more toxic byproducts.

Thinking of you and your spill, Olaf. You know any more?

You know there are maybe 5 or 6 here that'd do anything to help you! I can help you search for them if you want!

Originally Posted by ///M=Power

Normally people that are in the ER for ingesting coolant are given alcohol b/c one interacts with the other or binds to some functional group on a molecule don't remember exactly but thought it was pretty cool.

Is that a purple pen your using to point to the problem , theres your problem if it was blue i would of listened

Originally Posted by SHK&BAK3

Normally people that are in the ER for ingesting coolant are given alcohol b/c one interacts with the other or binds to some functional group on a molecule don't remember exactly but thought it was pretty cool.

Ethanol and ethylene glycol are both somewhat similar structurally (ethylene glycol has the OH group on both carbons instead of just 1) and as such both are metabolized rather similarly. Thing is, ethylene glycol gets turned into toxic substances when metabolized, while ethanol gets turned into relatively harmless stuff. The reason giving large doses of ethanol as a treatment works is because it acts as a competitive inhibitor on the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme (which processes alcohols including glycols/diols). If there is a ton more ethanol than ethylene glycol, then the probability for ethanol binding to enzymes is much greater than it is for ethylene glycol. So what ends up happening is you pee out the almost all of the ethylene glycol unmetabolized (like I mentioned earlier, if ethylene glycol wasn't metabolized, it wouldn't do much harm... in fact the toxic effects that are due to ethylene glycol alone are quite similar to the effects of ethanol)

This sort of treatment works for basically any alcohol poisoning that results from the alcohol getting metabolized into more dangerous substances (any alcohol besides ethanol itself)

(I realize this is completely off-topic. Sorry.)

Del,

Here's a sure-fired solution for you...

Have an open house Fourth of July celebration and invite any fanatic who can make it...with tools! Hamburger (no cheese) and Mike's and I'm all over that leak!

...and no, I don't know where your rear seat armrest went!

Originally Posted by TerraPhantm

Ethanol and ethylene glycol are both somewhat similar structurally ...

(I realize this is completely off-topic. Sorry.)

Actually, very interesting to me. For those not following along, Terra is basically saying that the safest way to work on your cooling system is to be drunk while doing so...or at least, have had some alcohol before; during; and in event of accidental ingestion of coolant, then after.

Terra, just saying, but I wish you hadn't of written what you did now that I think about it. Don't we have enough issues coming on board here with cooling system work? Come Tuesday here, I'll bet you we have four or five cooling threads before noon!

there is a heat pipe that goes from your PS res to your radiator. the heat pipe sits directly in front of your radiator and is used to cool your PS system. since you like to retrofit stuff, i recommend retrofitting a dedicated PS cooler/radiator instead. the number one killer for our PS is heat. on the e39, e90, and every new model since the e46, BMW installed a power steering radiator and did not use the heat pipe.

Originally Posted by flashtwosix

there is a heat pipe that goes from your PS res to your radiator. the heat pipe sits directly in front of your radiator and is used to cool your PS system. since you like to retrofit stuff, i recommend retrofitting a dedicated PS cooler/radiator instead. the number one killer for our PS is heat. on the e39, e90, and every new model since the e46, BMW installed a power steering radiator and did not use the heat pipe.

PS seems pretty durable to me, Flash. I've only heard one other guy mention doing something about fitting a cooler there...and I believe he removed his pusher fan and needed to convert clutch fan to electric. Seems like a lot of work to change something that works fine.

Also, I don't think we know where the leak is coming from, but it sounds like you're sure he's lost PS. Did I miss that or are you 'just saying,' like I often do?

Originally Posted by TerraPhantm

Ethanol and ethylene glycol are both somewhat similar structurally (ethylene glycol has the OH group on both carbons instead of just 1) and as such both are metabolized rather similarly. Thing is, ethylene glycol gets turned into toxic substances when metabolized, while ethanol gets turned into relatively harmless stuff. The reason giving large doses of ethanol as a treatment works is because it acts as a competitive inhibitor on the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme (which processes alcohols including glycols/diols). If there is a ton more ethanol than ethylene glycol, then the probability for ethanol binding to enzymes is much greater than it is for ethylene glycol. So what ends up happening is you pee out the almost all of the ethylene glycol unmetabolized (like I mentioned earlier, if ethylene glycol wasn't metabolized, it wouldn't do much harm... in fact the toxic effects that are due to ethylene glycol alone are quite similar to the effects of ethanol)

This sort of treatment works for basically any alcohol poisoning that results from the alcohol getting metabolized into more dangerous substances (any alcohol besides ethanol itself)

(I realize this is completely off-topic. Sorry.)

Exactly ... good memory refresher, are you perhaps a chemistry just curious?

Don't you know? All the cool kids are drinking Prestone.