I had to drop the diff and replace an ill advised use of cork oil pan gasket. I cleaned it up and used the good FIPG sealant. Got the leaking oil pan gasket fixed. While observing for leaks I notice some oil pooling up on the underside of the oil pump. Is there a bolt on the oil pump that was supposed to get rtv'd on install? The other two possibilities I can think of is the front main seal is leaking or the rubber seal in the oil pump body got kinked or was not good to begin with. Do you guys concur? Or know of any thing else that it could be? I did use a new main seal just 4K miles ago on the rebuild. I reused the oil pump gasket with pretty low miles on it also. (not much time in service)
Thanks

Also this engine prior to getting honed and correctly installed rings 4K ago did not leak one drop of oil.

Well I wiped it off, started it up and watched. The oil appears to be coming from the seam between the oil pump and the timing cover at the very bottom of the oil pump between the two bottom bolts on it.
Unreal. I have never seen this before. Must be a bad rubber seal in side the oil pump. It is definitely not coming from the front main seal. Thankfully this should be an easy fix.

Question? I just added new oil. How much oil to I have to drain so that it will not leak out the front when I take the oil pump off? Anyone know?

Yesm the bolts are supposed to get some rtv before install. If this is a 22re, the '85 FSM, linked in the FSM section at the top of this board, will show you which ones get the RTV, same with the timing cover bolts.

The seal on the pump is also a common point of leaks with age.

Once the draining starts it is hard to stop after a presumed measure. A bigger question is can you drain it into a container that you are assured of not contaminating with foreign matter (dust) that could be bad for your engine.

There is an o-ring that could have gone bad.


If you don't want to drain all the oil, I would crack the oil pump bolts loose, and let it drain into a pan, then top off with fresh oil.