Oil leak with warmer weather

It got nice and warm here in MA starting Friday...70's-80's, Driving home friday I noticed a cloud of smoke behind me, all gauges were normal, its a 97 4.0 AW4

Got under it and there was oil all over the place and it was dripping from the lowest hanging part of the transmission closest to the front (the bellhousing?) right above the pipe where it crosses over

It never leaked/dripped any oil before, at least it never made it to the driveway

In march I changed it with 6.5 quarts of 10w40 and the bigger Mobil 1 filter and havn't had a problem till now

I cleaned everything up and it didn't leak anything over night

Back of the block is clean so its not the valve cover gasket, doesn't leak when parked so maybe not the rear main, the starter and bottom of the oil filter were covered so i'm assuming its the adapter o-rings

Also I tightened the filter down with a wrench, I just did it with my hand when I changed it in March and this helped a little but it still drips on the exhaust after driving for a while (20-25+ mins)

Does that sound about right? Any idea why it would all the sudden start leaking enough to cause it to smoke

TIA

Sounds right to me. I drove with mine leaking down the bellhousing (but not hitting the exhaust or the driveway) for over a year. One day while I was pulling back into town from school, which was about a 90 mile highway commute, it all of a sudden started really leaking, much like you described.

Go ahead and grab an oil filter adaptor o-ring KIT from the dealer, make sure you get the KIT and not just the main o-ring, as there are two other o-rings you'll need to replace once you take everything apart. It was something like $3-4 at the dealer when I got mine a few months ago, pretty cheap.

Yup, probably need to replace the o-ring kit. Depending on what kind of bolt head you've got it's either a really easy thing to take off or you have to get inventive with a torx bit.

If that doesn't solve the problem then it's most likely the rear main. It's gotta start leaking at some point in time.

First of all 6.5 quarts is too much as far as I know it's just 6. If you went to a different oil filter it IS possible that it's the wrong one (this has happened to me because I trusted the auto parts guy to give me the right one but it was the wrong filter and I didn't measure it or size it up to my old filter). I didn't know this for a couple of days that it was leaking.
If your starter is covered with oil it's your filter OR filter adapter OR oil pressure sender and I'd bet not the RMS.But I'll say x2 on the adapter kit and checking the filter gasket to see if it's the right filter.

ParadiseXJ said:

First of all 6.5 quarts is too much as far as I know it's just 6. If you went to a different oil filter it IS possible that it's the wrong one (this has happened to me because I trusted the auto parts guy to give me the right one but it was the wrong filter and I didn't measure it or size it up to my old filter). I didn't know this for a couple of days that it was leaking.
If your starter is covered with oil it's your filter OR filter adapter OR oil pressure sender and I'd bet not the RMS.But I'll say x2 on the adapter kit and checking the filter gasket to see if it's the right filter.

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6.5 quarts isn't to much when using the Ford 5.0 filter size, the 4.0 normally takes 6 quarts, when you use the oversize filter you add an extra 1/2 a quart

I will check the sending unit but I installed a new one one I got this Jeep in November and it was fine, but def something else to look at

I picked up the o-ring kit from the dealer, I think it was like 6 bucks

I was going to change the oil anyway this weekend so i'll do this then, hopefully it will solve the problem, just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was overlooking

I would just let it keep dripping but its after driving it for a while its making it smoke

Thanks for the responses

I experienced everything you described, and took nearly 4 months for me figure out what it was. I replaced every seal in the jeep (oil filter adapter, valve cover gasket, transmission gasket, rear main seal, oil pan gasket... you get the point) to figure out it was leaking from the front main seal of the transmission, through the bell housing and down on the pipe (where it cross's). I would first replace the oil adapter Orings cause its simple and cheap. If that doesnt work, clean the underneath of your motor and transmission with a heavy degreaser (I bought a commerical strength degreaser). Put your jeep on stands and with good common sense and a flash light start your jeep and lay under it until you can see the leak (took me almost 30 min's before i noticed where it was coming from).

I would hate to see someone else do what i did, spend alot of time and money fixing stuff that wasn't broke. Good Luck.