Leaking something?

I was driving up in the mountains today. I noticed that while I was climbing I was getting a white smoke out the exhaust. The temp gauge was sittin above 210. It's a 98 with the 4.0 and auto. When I got done hiking I noticed some fluid under the jeep. Looks like the fluid was on the bottom of the oil pan or transmission. I checked the fluids...everything looked good but the oil looked slightly overserviced but it was on a hill. What commonly starts to leak on these Cherokees?

duntov said:

What commonly starts to leak on these Cherokees?

Click to expand...

Fluids, mostly.

Kidding -

Oil from:
Rear Main Seal - search
Oil Filter Adapter - search
Valve Cover

Trans Fluid from:

Cooler lines
Pan gasket
Out the trans dipstick caused by too much fluid or coolant in the fluid from a bad heat exchanger.

Coolant from pretty much anywhere

Power Steering Fluid from, well, the PS Pump

...or you spilled a beer!!

Get it on level ground and check the oil again. Also look at the air filter and see if it is oily. If your oil is overfilled then when you are on an incline and the engine is warm, there is a possibility of it going through the breather and back into the intake to be reburned thus causing the white smoke (if it's oil it should have a blue tint to it). As far as leaking the oil out, it would really have to be overfilled to come out of the top of the oil cap or the something like that. Are you sure that it didn't already leak and you are just now noticing it because of the white smoke?

Could be the trans got overheated from your mountain driving. When it overheats it spills out the vent and onto the exhaust, creating a white smoke from behind. Check to see if you have a greasy residue on your hatch. That doesn't appear all the time, but it did for me once when my trans was overfilled and the fluid came out of the vent on the highway about 2 years ago. White smoke and greasy residue on the rear hatch.

I did appear to have what appeared to be maybe red fluid on the transmission. Hopefully that is all that it was. I need to powerwash it underneath to see if any other liquid leaks out. Thanks for the reply.

Greg

Looks like it stopped leaking...hoping it was just that the transmission vent relieved a little.