Has anyone found a way to tighten the bolts on the back side of the oil pan. I have a fairly good leak from the backside and they are impossible to reach. Any suggestions. I have a 2001 outback and a 1996 svx.

Hi and welcome! Are you sure simply tightening those bolts would fix the leak? I mean are they 'loose'? If it really is the pan leaking it sounds like it needs to be removed and resealed. Could the leak actually be coming from someplace else and running down onto the pan?

are you sure its the oil pan thats leaking? could be the separator plate on the back of the shortblock. otherwise, if your sure its the oil pan bolts, you can take off the engine mount bolts and jack up the engine to access the bolts.

other oil leaks typically flow down around the rear of the oil pan making it look like the culprit when really it's something else. i'd verify for sure it's the pan before getting into that mess. how much oil are you loosing, in other words how muhc per thousand miles, etc? can you look very closely and see if there's any oil above the pan where it's wet? if it's above the pan it's likely coming from somewhere else.

 

oil pans are annoying if you've never done them and aren't familiar with jacking the motor up. you want to be careful about overtightening the pan bolts. the lip of the pan is very thin metal and tightening hte bolts will bend the oil pan lip at the bolt head concave upward, into and cutting the gasket. will make it difficult in the future for a new gasket to seal successfully. if they are loose then that's one thing, but be sure to go hand tight only with them, they have very low torque specifications.

 

unbolt engine, lift it up to get to the rear oil pan bolts. may have to loosen or unbolt the rear transmission mount bolts as well to get it to move enough to reach them. that's probably only necessary if you're removing the pan entirely though.

Might be ur power steering fluid leaking all over the oil pan.