oil leak

[RookieJeeper]

1040875

89 Cherokee I6 4L

i had a pretty bad oil leak, and discovered it was the valve cover. now that that is fixed, i am still leaking oil, but very little. could this just be the built up grime and oil running down the engine and off the oil pan, or could there be another leak somewhere? where the oil is currently dripping from is the oil pan, but if i look in between, all i can see is a mass of oil and grime, strongly considering degreasing! i guess the only way to find out where it is coming from is to clean it and watch where the spots are forming!

[addsig]

 

[TerryMason]

1040878

Is that a 4.2 L 258?



Mine leaked horribly, and the only way I got it to stop was to buy a whole new valve cover. You should definately degrease it though



[addsig]

 

[RookieJeeper]

1040880

its a 4.0 inline 6 242 engine[addsig]

 

[balloo93]

1040883

Hell yeah, degrease the thing. Take it to a car wash. Let it sit for a bit with the hood open (if you're lucky you live near one) and I clean my interior while I wait. You know armor-all and what not.



Take some plastic bags with you to cover the coil, distributor cap, and electronics. Take some crappy clothes with you and if you have a creeper take it too. Its a lot easier to roll around on one of those than to lay in all that crud. As you degrease, I like to work from the top down. Then get on the creeper and get the lower. You should also hit the trans case and transmission to keep and eye out for any fluids there too.



Take it back home and let it cool for a bit then hit it with Simple Green and a scrub brush. You may want to consider hitting all the greasable spots as well to see what kind of shape they are in, then have them all lubed up afterwards. I like to use liberal amounts of Beer while doing the home job, it always seems to make cleaning go faster.[addsig]