how urgent to fix a rear main seal leak?

[apollo18]

for a 6.0l v8 LQ4 engine, with 250,000 km on it. there seems to be a rear main seal leak or oil pan gasket leak and its been like this for about a year. when the weather was colder, it seemed to only leak about 0.5 quart over 6000 km of driving. well now summer came and i think this made it worse but i noticed it leaked about a quart over 5000 km's.

 

every morning it has a small puddle/everytime i drive and park for a few hours.

 

so how bad can it get? like can it rip and blow at any moment or lilke am i good? because i am parking the vehicle in like 6 months so i just need it reliable till then ahah

 

thanks

[Snowcamo]

for a 6.0l v8 LQ4 engine, with 250,000 km on it. there seems to be a rear main seal leak or oil pan gasket leak and its been like this for about a year. when the weather was colder, it seemed to only leak about 0.5 quart over 6000 km of driving. well now summer came and i think this made it worse but i noticed it leaked about a quart over 5000 km's.
 
every morning it has a small puddle/everytime i drive and park for a few hours.
 
so how bad can it get? like can it rip and blow at any moment or lilke am i good? because i am parking the vehicle in like 6 months so i just need it reliable till then ahah
 
thanks

Keep 5quarts and you will likely be ok. Sure it'll get worse its just the nature of the beast. Other then you littering toxic waste and your pockets emptying lol you'll be ok.

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[apollo18]

thanks for the reply! do you know if the real seal is indeed made of teflon for gm engines in which it cant be "bettered" by a stop leak product?

[Jsdirt]

My '86 Grand Marquis has had a rear main seal leak for the 17 years, 201k miles we've owned it for. Uses a quart every 1k miles, and leaves a good sized spot on the shop floor every morning. Free rustproofing for the undercarriage.

 

There's several companies that make rear main stop leak products. You will have to keep adding them with every oil change, however.

 

To fix it right, tranny has to come out, or be slid back a ways.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Jsdirt

[Snowcamo]

thanks for the reply! do you know if the real seal is indeed made of teflon for gm engines in which it cant be "bettered" by a stop leak product?

Stay away from that leak stop. Just say no!!! Lmao. Its no good.

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[Doug_Scott]

Those stop leak products typically soften the seals.  If you think about it, how can it be softened?  The only way I can come up with is that product contains a solvent for the material the seal is made from.  Rear main seals are not usually sealing pressurized oil in, don't get me wrong, it does run in a fair amount of oil, its just not under pressure.  If it were it would stay sealed longer due to the design of lip type seals.

You don't want Teflon seals in any seal that is on a rotating surface. Teflon is harder than the metal contained in engines/transmissions and will wear a groove into the metal surface of the seals are of the split ring style.