All right, so I've got a problem with a really bad oil leak.

You'll need some backstory first:
It started with a small oil leak which I believed to have been from my rear main seal. I took off the oil pan, putting the bolts into cardboard to make sure I knew where they went. I put soap on the back of the seals and oil on the front, with a little RTV on the ends, and put them in. I also replaced the oil pump with a high volume pump which required a bit of modding.

I bolted up all of the bolts EXCEPT 2 on the drivers side rear of the pan. I spent over an hour just trying to get those damned bolts in, and I know they're the right ones because I was being maticulous. I suspected that the holes aren't matching up exactly or the gasket was stopping it from going in. My solution was to just leave them out and drive around for a bit; hopefully the heat and movement will set them in the right place, then I would replace the bolts.

After some research I concluded that if I unplug the CPS and just crank until I see some oil pressure that would prime the pump. I only saw like 10 PSI, which I thought was weird but I figured that should work because I cranked it for nearly 2 minutes. Plugged the CPS back in and fired her up. She ran strong and oil pressure was steady at 60 PSI, no leaks or anything.

Now the problem:
I drive about 6 miles away and then it started smelling really bad and I saw some white smoke. Apparently she was leaking really bad, I'm assuming from the rear main? And when I say leaking really bad I mean like, I lost 2-3 quarts in the 10 mins that I drove her. Also, I was watching my oil pressure gauge pretty closely and I did see the oil pressure jump to 80 PSI and then fall back down after a few secs.

The questions are:
Do you suppose the leak is coming from the seal?
I never got the bolts in beacuse it started leaking before I thought I would be able to do it, so do you think it's leaking because of the missing bolts?
Or is it from the fact I didn't put any RTV on the gasket?
Any other ideas?

 

Any ideas guys? I edited a bunch of useless info trying to make it shorter to read, come on!

 

Its obviously going to leak because of the missing bolts. Start your jeep, put ebrake on and climb under and see for yourself where the oil is coming from! Most likely the bolts on oil pan gasket causing it tho,

 

Take the pan off, put a stock oil pump back on, buy a nice new gasket, and put it all back together neatly. To loose that much oil, it's a pressure leak not just the two missing bolts. Why did you put the high volume on? My best guess is you didn't get the rear main cap on right and it's pushing out the rear main seal. But only you know where it's leaking from.

 

Did you try to install all bolts before tightening any of them?
When you re-do, spray holes out with brake clean. Make sure bolts thread into holes before you start any reassembly. Obviously clean all surfaces and use new gasket (high quality). Other than a few "easy" bolts to hold in place, get the ones left out started first this time. Only thread a few turns each until ALL bolts are started. Snug all bolts before starting tightening pattern.

IMO, that pump should be fine.
What did you have to "mod" to make it fit?

 

First off the pan bolts, when you get the RTV and gasket set properly hold the pan up and place bolts on all four corners (I changed to ARP studs kits for everything on my engines. Once you have those aligned start them like you would lug nuts never tightening any till all are in. If there is a problem with any of them use a large punch in the hole to align the gasket with the hole. Once that is done tighten them all down till they are just snug, then get your torque wrench (if you don't have now is the time to buy one) and tighten them to spec. (very important) to tight and the gasket will be ruined.

The rear main that will just have to be inspected again. As far as the new oil pump go back to a stock one. The only time to replace one with a HV pump is with a new engine build and all new parts ready for the extra pressure.

As with all things YMMV

 

Did you happen to checkout the v/c,oil gauge sending unit,filter adapter,and distributor for leaks before determing it was the rmc?

 

Mine was the timing cover gasket.

 

Can be a number of things besides the rms. Easier to fix to.

 

Thanks for all of the replies guys, I appreciate the help. I dont have time tow ork on her until Tuesday night probably but I wanted to get as much extra info as I could. I'm hoping it's just the but I'm pretty sure I must have blown out the rear main seal or something because it looks like it's coming from that area. I'll definitely take a look.

The reason I put in a high volume is because the old pump had 210k+ miles on it and with everything off I figured it'd be a good idea to replace. It ended up that autozone had a complete high volume kit versus only the stock pump. So in went the high volume pump.

And I'm actually thinking that the original leak is coming from the oil filter adapter...

 

Mine was that oil filter adapter. Mechanic friend told me those are known to get rock hard seals then leak. I was putting in about 3 quarts A DAY. Seriously. Then looked at it. Sure was.