Subaru oil leak

My son's 2.5 outback is leaking oil pretty significantly. It leaves a six inch spot every where he parks it. Do these cars have a 'typical" leaking issue. Would this likely be the front crank seal? It hasn't had a timing belt change yet (it's due) and I assume that the seal could be done ,along with the water pump when I do the belt ? Anyone have first hand knowledge?

The "Mickey Mouse" oil pump seal is a pretty common source. Cam seals go more often than the crank seal. Seeing where it drips relative to the engine will help you find it.

Subarus leak oil from... everywhere. Steel oil pans are known to rot on the forward face, cam end seals, oil pump seal, valve cover gaskets, head gaskets, etc etc. Thankfully, front and rear mains(rear in particular) are pretty tough.

+1 on SlickDizzy's vote, that sounds pretty significant. I'd get a Gates timing belt kit with water pump, and do the cam and oil pump seals while I was in there.

Most of the oil appears to be dripping from the lowest point on the pan and from the filter. It's not coming from the outboard parts of the motor, like where I'd expect the cam seals to drip. I wonder if the pan is rotten ? The rear bolts on the pan don't look very accessible, does the motor have to be raised to get the pan off ?

Rear pan bolts can be accessed with a phillips screwdriver via small holes in the crossmember (depending on when the car was made, I think), or by unbolting the dogbone mount and the lower mount nuts and jacking the whole lot up a few inches. I prefer the latter.

Well, he just phoned me from work and the oil light is on. So, that's about 3 quarts leaked out in 3 days, maybe 100 miles of driving. I guess I know what I'm starting on tomorrow.
.......or, maybe I'll order a service manual first.......

You can download the service manuals pretty easy if you search over at NASIOC. Or I can send you a pdf copy of the relevant pages if you want.

I would lean toward either the oil pan seal or the oil pump seal being the culprit. If its the oil pan seal you are going to be taking off the timing belt, so you might as well put in a new belt, idlers, oil pump seal, water pump seal, and etc. Valve cover gaskets, cam cover gaskets, and a bunch of the other gaskets will readily leak oil but not usually as much as you are describing.

You can change the oil pan gasket by either burning hours fiddling with swivels and short 1/4" sockets OR you can loosen the easily accessible engine mounts, dogbone, and lift the motor with a jack to give easy access.

I am assuming that it isnt something silly like the the old oil filter gasket was left on when the new oil filter was put on. I know that is ridiculous but....ummm....a "friend" of mine did that...

Ojala,
The first thing I checked was the oil filter gasket. Unfortunately, it was fine. It's dripping steadily down the driver's side of the pan, even after sitting for a couple of hours. I find that odd. I expect leaks when it's running but not when stopped for this long I'll clean out the garage in the morning and get it up on jack stands and get a closer look. You would think the oil would all be in the pan and stop dripping. Thanks for the offer on the files, but I've ordered a complete manual on CD. I expect this car to be a recurring source of enforced learning !

Another vote for the oil pump.

My Brighton, in it's first incarnation, had a terrible oil leak that actually saved the undercarriage from rust. In the time leading up to when I sold it I drove a LOT of miles daily and didn't have the funds or time to take it out of service and fix it properly. I would get about 1000 miles to the gallon...of oil. Sad and neglectful, I know. But, It's all better now!

Do these things have an external oil pump, since the oil pump seal has been mentioned ?

As in, bolts to the front of the block, yes. Under the timing cover, driven off the belt.

EDIT: Oops. WATER pump driven from the timing belt, not oil pump. Ignore me completely.

DeadSkunk wrote: Do these things have an external oil pump, since the oil pump seal has been mentioned ?

Yup, it's dead smack in the middle of the engine. You have to do the crank seal at the same time.

Thanks SlickDizzy. I was looking up at the two plugs and wondered what they were. Now I know ! So, that seal in the picture could be leaking. Is there another seal on the crank behind the oil pump ? Where did you get those photos, they're easy to see and understand?

This is the "Mickey Mouse" seal I referred to that commonly fails on the backside of the oil pump - there is an 80% chance this is the culprit. Obviously you have to do the crank seal at the same time so that would eliminate that possible issue. (This specific pic is of an XT6 seal, yours will look slightly different but you get the idea)

Oh, and Google Images is providing all the pics

Now it's becoming clearer. Thanks everyone.

If you have any more questions about the job, feel free to ask. I've done it a dozen times now - never on an EJ25 specifically, but on enough other Subies to know the job in and out regardless of the details.

In reply to SlickDizzy:

My daughter's (now my son's) 2.2 Subie started leaking oil from the cam seals at about the 215,000 mile mark. Fixed the seals and it is fine now.

OK. The oil leak is from a rust hole in the pan, right where the dipstick is welded to the pan. So I'll be changing that out. Now to see how much is involved with the timing belt change. My biggest "fear" is working with corroded bolts holding everything together. The next time any of my family wants a used car I'm going south again, no more 10 year old Michigan cars !.

^Must be a weak point, my new aftermarket pan (RockAuto cheapy) just cracked at that weld. A generous slathering of JB Weld patched it up fine.

Oh. I was just looking at the pans from RockAuto and wondering if I should just buy the cheap Dorman one , or go for the premium one. Maybe I'll get the premium for the extra 20 bucks then.

Go for the premium...

I used the cheap one on a Forester a while back and the dipstick didn't line up right, and required "Adjustment " to get things to all go back together.

I had to unbolt the mounts and lift the engine as much as possible to get to the rear bolts on the pan. I used blocks of wood between the mounts and frame to keep the engine raised while using a wobble drive and universal to get to the bolts at the rear of the pan.

If I remember correctly, the pickup needed to be unbolted after dropping the pan, in order to get it to slide out between the frame and engine.

I used a gates kit (from amazon) for the timing belt that came with idlers and tensioner. The tough parts to get off were the damper bolt, and cover bolts. I had to cut the heads off a couple of the cover bolts, luckily the dealer stocked them, and I made sure they all had anti-seize when reassembled.

Everything under the timing belt covers was easy to get apart.

Also spend the extra at the dealer for a new thermostat if you are going to put in a new one, the AZ one I used at first would close too quickly causing the temp to fluctuate a lot. The factory t-stat solved it.

Thanks, jstand.