90 4x4 Oil Leaks

Just bought a beater, has about 213000 miles on it. It had a small leak from the front of the block, a few drips. I got under the motor and started cleaning and seeing what needed work. The underside is full of caked oil all over the place. Going to degrease it. I started checking the bolts to see how tight everything was. Some bolts were actually loose around the oil pan, valve cover, and exhaust manifold. After I tightened up everything, the next morning I noticed a few more little oil spots on the cardboard. Now, do you think I just squeezed extra oil out of the gaskets when I tightened the bolts? Did I mess something up? I'm thinking of replacing the oil pan gasket alltogether. Any ideas or suggestions? Where should I start? Thank you in advance for any help.

give it a couple of days, and you will be better able to id the leeks. you will have to frop the front transfer case to get the oil pan off, but it is pretty easy to do, only big bolts hold it there and you wont change the alignment when you do drop it. Just be shure when you take off the oil pan you are carefull with the pickup tube. At 200k I would think the valve cover seal has cracks in it, it is easy to replace and cheap too.

If I could offer a novice mechanic any one piece of advice on stopping oil leaks it would be to buy and use a click-type torque wrench. It will save you lots of guess work and keep you from causing leaks by overtighting bolts. Lots of ppl have replaced gaskets without a t/w sucessfully, but with one it cuts down on doing a job more than once.

Best of Luck and let us know how it comes out

Nate

When I drop the front transfer case, do I need to support the truck with jack stands and all that mess or can I just drop it right off the bottom of the truck? Thanks for the advice on the torque wrench!

the front transfer case wont even have to come all the out of the truck, and no you wont have to jack the truck up. you can kinda push/wiggle it to the side a bit and get it out of the way. it will still be connected by the axle halves and cv joints, but the pumpkin win be out of the way enought to get the oil pan out. I Just got doing this on my truck when I put a new head gasket on about a month ago. Not too tuff.

Nate

You ever have to replace the transfercase gasket? Just curious to know if its a common thing, might as well crack that open too.

You ever have to replace the transfercase gasket? Just curious to know if its a common thing, might as well crack that open too.While searching, Saw this was wondering how big a job it is to replace the transfer case seal on a 94 DX? Anyone know?
Thanks

FWIW, all of you are confusing the transfer case with a differential.

The differentials are in the front and rear axles.

The transfer case is mounted behind the transmission and is what gives you 2WD/4WD and HI/LO ranges.

I will assume it is NOT a big job.