Oil leak after replacing intake boots?

Not sure what the hell I did wrong, but I replaced my lower and upper intake boots today, as well as cleaned my disa, icv and tb. I put everything back together and start up my car and as I'm backing my car out of my garage, i see a small trail of oil from underneath my car. looks like engine oil and smells like engine oil, and it dripped and trailed all the way down my driveway and into the street.

This is a rebuilt engine I swapped in about a month and a half ago, and i was attempting to correct a bouncing idle before i replaced my vanos seals.

I also dropped a socket while trying to loosen one of the hose clamps and I needed to jack my car up to reach underneath, and as I was using my scissor jack, it failed and slipped out from underneath my car's lift point. luckily the tire was barely off the ground and even more fortunately I wasn't underneath.

Any ideas fellas, to why I'm dripping a substantial amount of oil by just replacing intake boots? I shined a flashlight into the area I was working and I just dont see anything that could cause a leak by the intake manifold.

Just to note, I did drive around the block and i saw some water underneath the car when i got back after I parked in the garage and no oil.

This mess is just plain confusing.

Did you yank on or remove your dipstick?
The oil level is darn near to the top.
Won't take much to have it spill out if you have a broken
or missing oil dipstick tube.

I didnt remove the dipstick, I'm not sure if I hit it with my arm while trying to get the lower boot out, it's possible. I did have a really rough time trying to fit the socket onto that hose clamp there was virtually no room.

The dipstick did feel solid when I was checking oil after the fact. It wasn't loose or anything.

Need pics of the engine bay.

Completely unrelated.

Red brake light and DSC light tripped on the way to work this morning. SES light was already on due to headers and vanos. Had to to top my oil off it was about 3/4 qt low.

Gonna try to pull codes today and get it on a lift hopefully to see where the source of my problems are..

Originally Posted by lsteg

Need pics of the engine bay.

Engine bay is really clean up top. Nothing visible from the top. But pretty noticeable leak from underneath. It's Dripping onto the subframe brace skidplate. I'll snap some pics too

Here's some pics guys sorry they aren't the best quality it's really bright out today.

And the leak on the ground in this pic is rather small compared to yesterday. That's from running my car for like 2 or 3 min

alright, since the leak seems to be on the drivers side I suggest removing your intake and getting a closer look at the motor. Who knows what came loose or got bumped during the socket search or the lift failing. You're going to have to scratch the surface to find out what is underneath.

Happy hunting.

Thanks, I will update later on this afternoon hopefully

Look down at the oil return hose where it joined to the dipstick hose (from CCV), it might get crack or get loose when you yanked the dipstick hose around to gain more room for your work.

Originally Posted by taibinhvuong

Look down at the oil return hose where it joined to the dipstick hose (from CCV), it might get crack or get loose when you yanked the dipstick hose around to gain more room for your work.

I will definately check that one out thanks. I can see that hose being a possible culprit, I did have to kinda make my way around that hose to loosen the hose clamp on the lower intake boot, but I didn't see oil coming from that area when I looked yesterday.

Turned out to be my clutch slave cylinder. The seal ruptured and brake fluid was bleeding through there and draining through the bottom of the bell housing. Will be ordering new slave asap

Originally Posted by threetwentyfizzle

Turned out to be my clutch slave cylinder. The seal ruptured and brake fluid was bleeding through there and draining through the bottom of the bell housing. Will be ordering new slave asap

Glad you found it. Good luck with the replacement. Post up some pictures after you're done!

Thanks will do! Hopefully I'll have her up and running again by the weekend

Update! Finally got my car back up. Was a serious PITA tho, the slave cylinder pretty much exploded and all the components fell apart into the transmission

I was able to fish the cylinder and the rubber boot out easily, but the rod that engages the input shaft got lodged pretty far into the transmission by the pressure plate. The tech that was helping me had to pretty much drop the damn transmission to pull the rod out. But nonetheless we got everything back together and examined the underside of my car and no leaks coming from my new motor so that's good news to me too. Have a pic or 2 of today's "activities" for y'alls entertainment.


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Sent from my HTC One X using Bimmer App