Hey guys,

I'm getting a hint of smoke from under the hood. Last night I got a whiff of it as I was pulling into the garage. But I just thought, it must have been something else. But today as I was parking at work, the same thing. So I popped the hood and sniffed around and could smell it. If I held the hood down low to slow the (warm air) draft, I could make out smoke. It was rising from the driver's side, between the LF tire and firewall. Near all the electronal gizmos. It does smell like oil burning. It's very slight smoke, not concentrated, so it's not easy to tell if its oil smoke for sure, or the acrid smell of electronics burning. No indication of a problem at the cluster ... all is well, and running great.

So, I pulled the left side panel off and took a look around (man, those clips try their best to make a break for it, but caught them all). I stuck my face all around in there and got the c--p scared out of me when the electrical buzzing sound would start up (and run for about 1 to 2 seconds). But, I didn't see anything out of order. I could make out the exhaust, but couldn't see anything oily on it, and no smoke originating from there. Of course by that time the small amount of smoke that I noticed before seemed to be cleared away.

The only thing I can think of was that on Saturday I did an oil change at 40k miles. And when I pulled the plastic cartridge nipple out after draining, when it popped out, it did sort of splatter everywhere. And I did make a bit more of a mess this time than before. But mainly on the garage floor. All drips and splatters were wiped up. But I don't think any splatter would have got on an exhaust pipe due to the coverage of the under-cover. And even if it did, I would have thought it would have burnt off rather quickly. The housing and the housing drain "bolt" both received a new gasket, correctly placed and were both torqued to spec (as silly as it is, I torque it to spec anyway). All that stuff went back together very smoothly so I don't suspect a leak (gonna have to check though).

Has anyone else experienced smoke from this area?


Jason Oliver

 

Sounds like you "splashed" a little oil on the engine or exhaust manifold.... Give it a week and all should be fine once the oil burns off.
I also suggest pulling the car onto a "dry spot" and let it sit overnight to check for any drips..... Place a piece of cardboard under the car and check in the morning.

 

It's leaking oil. And making a mess. It's obvious after driving it today. I checked the oil level and it is on the stick between the marks at least. I have no choice, I have to drive it home. I can't work on it here at work. It has enough oil, so that's not an issue, but I just wish I didn't have to continue making a mess driving it home. Oh well. I can't image what I did wrong, but I'll figure it out.

 

Can't wait to hear what the heck you screwed up!

 

I agree with you Chris. Jason is one of this forum's premier tech guys. If he screws up what chance do the rest of us have?

As I started reading the first post, I was immediately thinking some fluid (oil, coolant, brake fluid, windshield washer) is weeping onto the engine/exhaust.

 

I checked the oil level and it was only a bit down the stick. Then drove it on home and put it up on some blocks to give me extra clearance in the front. And there it sits until I can get around to it. I can drive one of the other 6 vehicles in the fleet.

When I think back to the oil change, I can't remember torqueing the drain valve. But when I looked up under there after driving it, it was oozing from the under covers. So, that tends to make me think it's the filter canister. But, I got the friggin new o-ring in the right place, and torqued that sucker down with my torque wrench (I want to say to 25 N-m's). And it felt very smooth while threading it in and torqueing it down. It felt good so I can't imagine the issue.

Regardless, I've got a big mess to clean up once I get the chance to get up under it (this weekend). I'm not looking forward to it. I'm going to have to remove all those covers to clean them and everything else that got doused. I'm actually somewhat disappointed in myself and dreading (the unknown of) what it could be. But it's got to be what I did, and I didn't do that much. It's got to be the canister torque. Oh, and I even put that seemingly useless clip thingie back on the canister once finished torqueing it. What the heck does that little clip thingie do anyway?


Jason Oliver

 

It prevents the canister from backing out/unscrewing itself.

If I were you, I'd replace the canister and filter. The new updated canisters are metal as seen here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-GENUINE-TOYOTA-Oil-Filter-Housing-Cap-Holder-15620-31060-and-Tool-WRENCH/191424197312?fits=Make%3ALexus%7CModel%3ALS460&hash=item2c91c572c0:g-kAAOSwH71XO5~a:sc:USPSPriority!98295!US!-1

 

Chris -

I believe the previous oil change I may have put the o-ring in the wrong place. Where it looks like it should go, versus where it goes. And when I removed the canister THIS TIME, it seemed to kind of scrape when I was backing it off. I wonder if that scraping was a thread being damaged. But ... I sort of dismissed that potential because once confirming I was 100% certain I put the o-ring in the correct place, it went together like butter. Smooth all the way in. No scraping.

But now I wonder. Could I have damaged a plastic thread upon removal? And that has lead to this leak? And the scraping was plastic material being removed, hence the reason there was no scraping going back on (not there to scrape)? I guess I'm going to go ahead and buy the metal canister. I can get it for $22 on Amazon, and 2 day delivery. Couldn't hurt a thing.

I've found some of those covers underneath cars to be a RPITA to remove. I wonder if the LS will be the same...


Jason

 

Why did the oil leak? Can you see it? Yet this is not the root cause.When I was with Toyota, we were trained that the root cause is determined after 5 why's. But one must start pretty basic. Let's run through that, shall we?

Problem: Oil leaked (very basic).
1. Why? No seal. (Not a seal failure).
2. Why? Seal in incorrect location.
3. Why? Seal assembled (to canister) incorrectly.
4. Why? Failure to comprehend instructions.
5. Why? Blurry vision / lack of patience.

Based on the instruction below, I distinctly remember thinking the sketch on the right was correct.

I read this from while under the car. And it was somewhat blurry. Plus I wasn't patient enough to comprehend what it said below. I remember it distinguishing a right and wrong way but didn't actually do more than glance.

I did it as shown on the right. I don't recommend that. I didn't pay enough attention to the OK / NG above. Nor could I totally focus on this under the car.

I'm now just letting the plastic nipple drain the canister and will use the new metal canister when I get it, and a new o-ring.

It was not as big a mess as I was afraid of. It will be back in service as soon as I get the new canister. Now I kind of wish I hadn't bought it. Don't really need it.


Jason Oliver

 

You got away lightly. There's a guy on the Cadillac forums who changed the oil on his CTS but forgot to change the O-ring. He got up to highway speed and the engine locked up with barely any warning. $7,000 later it was back on the road.

 

So I've got it as cleaned up as it's going to get and drove it around. It wasn't nearly as messy as I was expecting. I couldn't get my hands on the exhaust pipe where evidently some of the oil blew. So, there's still some smoke smell when driving it ... when parking only. But I checked it and it is not leaking any more. It seals much better when the o-ring is in the correct place. I guess it will take some time to burn that off.

It leaked about 1.5 quarts. Luckily I had an extra quart, so now I'm halfway between the dots on the dipstick. Back to normal operation.


Jason Oliver

 

very common problem... done it at least twice. So, what I do is confirm that o ring is placed at the same grove as it was before the oil change

 

Yeah ... I guess I was / am too comfortable with what I was doing to bother to 2nd guess myself. I wonder how many dealership techs do this? I bet it has been done A LOT by those guys because the WRONG location, looks like the natural place to put it. And those guys are all about slamming it out and moving on.

 

I don’t think these techs change the o ring. I watched one time a Toyota dealer doing oil change on my Sienna and they never changed any of the o rings. Ever wondered why your drain plug was very hard to open..it is because they never change the smaller o ring. You will be lucky if the change the bigger one...

 

hfahmy - I think you hit the nail on the head. I bet they don't change them.

Believe it or not, the one that got pushed out on mine, looked in perfect condition when I removed it. I tossed it and used a new one anyway.