Head scratcher - Oil on passenger floor

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NegroTundra

New member
I've owned my 98 T4R for a little over three months now. When I bought it had a severe leak on both valve cover gaskets...everything underneath was covered in oil to the point I damn near walked away, until the seller made me such a sweetheart deal I couldnt. I got around to the valve cover gaskets about a month ago and have finally got the underneath pretty well cleaned up.

When I bought it I also noticed the passenger floor was grimey and damp. Having owned a 99 T4R with a sunroof before, I attributed it to that and made a note to clean out the drains on the sunroof (she's been in a garage since I bought it and it never rains here so I wasn't in a hurry). Finally got around to cleaning out the drains today and everything was clean as a whistle up there. Pulled the carpet back on the passenger side floorboard to investigate further and what do you know...OIL! :shocked: Definitely motor oil.

I can't seem to track it down to any one place. My thought is that it was blowing off the motor while going down the highway and finding little ways to make it past the firewall....the valve cover leak was serious, and had probably been for a decade based on how filthy everything was underneath. You guys think this is plausible? Anyone else experienced this? I cleaned everything up under there pretty good, aside from the oil impregnated carpet, not sure what to do with that. I'll keep an eye on it, if its not getting worse I'll chalk it up as fixed due to new gaskets. Anyhow, thanks for listening :hello:
 
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Mine was leaking bad from the cam plugs when i did the valve covers. Also had a misfire due to oil on the plug bc valve cover. Not sure how it got there but..
Heres my theory:
The oil was spilled there. From previous owners incompetence/ignorance.

If the covers were leaking oil, it was likely low on oil frequently enough to warrant carrying extra oil.

One day the previous owner forgot to put the cap back on his 5qrt oil jug (bc the leak was persistant) and slammed on the breaks for a civic with a mismatched bumper that pulled in front resulting in said oil to be found soaked under the carpet.

Any more brain busters?
 
frodiesel said:
Mine was leaking bad from the cam plugs when i did the valve covers. Also had a misfire due to oil on the plug bc valve cover. Not sure how it got there but..
Heres my theory:
The oil was spilled there. From previous owners incompetence/ignorance.

If the covers were leaking oil, it was likely low on oil frequently enough to warrant carrying extra oil.

One day the previous owner forgot to put the cap back on his 5qrt oil jug (bc the leak was persistant) and slammed on the breaks for a civic with a mismatched bumper that pulled in front resulting in said oil to be found soaked under the carpet.

Any more brain busters?
Click to expand...
Oil on the top of spark plugs is from the spark plug tube seals in the vc leaking, on the bottom would be leaking valve seals or piston rings.
 
frodiesel said:
Mine was leaking bad from the cam plugs when i did the valve covers. Also had a misfire due to oil on the plug bc valve cover. Not sure how it got there but..
Heres my theory:
The oil was spilled there. From previous owners incompetence/ignorance.

If the covers were leaking oil, it was likely low on oil frequently enough to warrant carrying extra oil.

One day the previous owner forgot to put the cap back on his 5qrt oil jug (bc the leak was persistant) and slammed on the breaks for a civic with a mismatched bumper that pulled in front resulting in said oil to be found soaked under the carpet.

Any more brain busters?
Click to expand...

Crossed my mind too, but this is clearly a case of the oil weeping up from underneath...no spill marks on top of carpet, just dingy.
 
NegroTundra said:
...
My thought is that it was blowing off the motor while going down the highway and finding little ways to make it past the firewall....the valve cover leak was serious, and had probably been for a decade based on how filthy everything was underneath. ...
Click to expand...

not sure but maybe...My vcs were leaking for 5 yrs of highway driving- smoking and burning odors galore, lots of oil everywhere underneath engine/trans but none ever came thru to carpet. strange situation you have there.
 
Foreign material could conceivably come in through gaps in the firewall openings, or through the opening at the top of the trans tunnel. That's about it. Your engine would have to have been blowing out tremendous amounts of oil combined with missing trans/transfer boots or have sizable gaps in firewall pass-through holes for it to happen.
Are you sure it's motor oil? I still like the spill theory.
 
I still like the spilled oil theory, makes the most since. I don't know how oil could get onto the floorboard from the engine bay without blowing in through a pretty good hole someplace. A hole that size would seemingly be pretty noticeable.

I'd clean it up real good and keep an eye on the area for a while and see whats happening, maybe leave the carpet pulled up.
 
The spill theory is the only plausible theory in my mind. If it were leaking enough oil that it could make its way through the firewall, then I think the motor would have been oil starved at some point. Even with the cap on an oil bottle, it can still leak quite easily.
The next likely would be that oil and coolant mixed at some point and leaked from the heater core then dried up.
 
Last edited:
I'd vote for interior spill too. If on the passenger side, maybe a quart was stored in jack storage area under the rear and sprung a small leak?

-Charlie
 
Pull the carpet and look at the floor plugs. That carpet needs to be pulled and cleaned regardless, for hygienic reasons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I cant find anyway that the oil could migrate from the engine bay or tranny area, so maybe ya'll are right. Perhaps the PO cleaned the top side of the carpet pretty good yet didnt get to the underside. Got her cleaned up as good as I'm gonna get 'er so we will see if it persists or not.

Happy Friday ye fellow T4R'ers.
 
Just reinforcing an interior spill as a likely cause. I accidentally did this in the trunk of my wifes accord. I had a oil disposal container in the back along with a half fall 5qt jug of oil. The cap on both the containers were tightened back on but driving around a couple days in stop and go traffic made things splash around & there was a good bit of oil that seeped onto the trunk carpet. I cleaned the trunk lining so you can't tell there was any spills but never checked underneath.
 
It was a nice Thursday afternoon. It was sunny, 72*, and PO had just gotten off work early. PO used his trusty 4Runner to go to PnP to grab a PS pump for his broke down trail rig(a JK, obviously, right?). He knows now that he needs a PS cooler so this doesn't happen again. He thought he was prepared- by having a small cardboard box on the passenger floor board for new-found PS pump. After an exciting drive home, he realized the PS pump still had fluid in it, and the red plastic cap wasn't enough to hold all the fluid in. The cap had actually come off- should have turned the 5 Finger Death Punch down a little, and payed more attn to the pump on the floor board.
He got some Turtle Wax brand carpet cleaner to clean it the best he could, and it actually cleaned up pretty well... at least, good enough for a rig he was selling.
 
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