dreamingofRX7

I found more oil leaks on my car, I'm trying not to get discouraged. It looks like either my omp which i have new seals coming for, or maybe my oil pan. in a much worse case, i suppose it could be my front engine cover?

So I could spend a couple grand on this car fixing it up, which i could get nothing back from. Or I could spend probably $4k on a new engine and install. That is not something I would ever do in my own garage with no lift. Or do I just drive it as is, not waste all kinds of money on it which I will never get back. As far as timeline, I doubt I would keep this car longer than a year. I have about $1000 into it so far including DMV fees. If the car had a perfect body I might feel better about going for the long haul with it, but its not great..

How far do you go?

dreamingofRX7

Servers too slow for me to edit, figured i'd reply to myself.

So I have one window runner, and two mouldings coming also. I had planned on doing both my door seals, hatch seal and sunroof seal. But I think its a waste of money now and won't gain me anything upon sale. The car has almost new tires and brakes also. I paid $2500 for it and it has 170k on it currently.

Rx-7Doctor

iTrader: (13)

Installing a oil pan gasket is not a major deal either. If it is alot of oil coming out then it may be the front cover. That even can be resealed in the car. It's just a matter of gaskets and time.

I don't think you are looking at this objectively. If you bought the car for the purpose of driving it and then recouping whatever money you had to put in it then you were not thinking clearly. :-)
Maintenance or repairs are the price of owning a used vehicle. If you wanted that then you should have bought a new vehicle. You would still have to change the oil and pay for services though(for most). There are some that have included packages now.
The down side is that you have a monthly payment, interest that you are paying for that loan, and increased insurance costs. Then after you drive it off of the lot you have lost more money than what a replacement engine would cost for you existing vehicle.
Before you start panicing and jumping to conclusions of what you might have to do. Verify the leak. OMP, or OMP lines, Oil pan gasket, or Front cover.
All of which are not major cost factors for parts. If you had to pay someone to do this then yes it could get expensive. I don't know of anyshop that would reseal the front cover while the engine is in there either. But like I said it can be done in the vehicle. I have a thread on this in the archive.

dreamingofRX7

thanks for the input. I didn't buy this car with the sole intention of selling it and making money. I have already had two other project cars which you can also see in my siggy link. I know how much money you lose on every project car. I just have to find the fine line of how far do I go before I stop putting money into it and just drive it. Oil leaks are my biggest peeve, and i can't even park in my rented driveway if I have leaks. I will start with the OMP seals which might be here in a few days. Maybe I'll do an oil pan gasket, but it was $30 at mazdatrix.. Then I'll see if I still have leaks coming after that. I couldnt find a oil pan R+R thread, so I'm wondering if I have to drop my steering link to get the oil pan off. Or can you just slide it out carefully?

64mgb

iTrader: (1)

When I rebuilt the 13B I stuck into my '85 GS I didn't use a pan gasket. I just used some gray RTV. So far so good. My OMP is leaking, but I'll take care of that when I pull the engine to send it off to the paint shop.

Rich

Kentetsu

Dude, if these are simple oil leaks then just fix it. Unless you have the dreaded dowel pin leak, then it should be very easy to repair. Nothing at all like chasing leaks on a piston engine... Also, check the lines that run from the OMP, they can really make a mess of things...