Lower timing cover leak?

Tyler54431 · Thursday at 10:05 AM

As usual I check everything out on the car religiously, and down in the left valley right near the alternator (3.8L engine) It had some gunk that’s I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while. Thought it was possibly just dirt and grime,. considering a while ago animals ran out infront of me and ripped off the entire splash shield under the engine so I never thought anything of it. Well last night I went out to check oil since it’s higher mileage and starting to burn like a quart every 3K nothing serious and found on what seems to be a small unserious leak as of right now. I’m not losing any big amounts of oil, nor am I dripping any in the driveway. Just curious if anyone else has had this before? Before i start getting stuff repaired it doesn’t need, it’s already been a money pit unfortunately

. I’m at work currently, but on break I’ll go out and take a picture for better reference

joegr · Thursday at 12:21 PM

Do you mean the front timing cover? Is it near the hydraulic tensioner pulley?

Glasman888 · 2026-01-09T20:38:19-0500

Yeah, that's the classic 3.8 timing cover leak. It's super common. If it's not dripping or losing much oil, you can just monitor it. The fix is a big job. Clean the area to see the seep rate better, but you can often just drive it like that for a long time.

Tyler54431 · 2026-01-10T00:59:20-0500

joegr said:
Do you mean the front timing cover? Is it near the hydraulic tensioner pulley?

Yes that sorry, wrote this up while I was at work. As I was looking as well it seems the OCV seal is leaking also creating a trail down the driver side of the block. Assuming you can just zip the two bolts out of that and throw a new one in?

Tyler54431 · 2026-01-10T01:01:28-0500

Glasman888 said:
Yeah, that's the classic 3.8 timing cover leak. It's super common. If it's not dripping or losing much oil, you can just monitor it. The fix is a big job. Clean the area to see the seep rate better, but you can often just drive it like that for a long time.

Okay good to know, it’s not dripping nothing onto the driveway or steering rack of anything as such. So should be fine until I get around to fixing it. Thanks