Last week I had my 2002 DMax empty the oil pan while driving down the road. Oil all under the bottom of the truck. Filled it back up and made my way back to my shop.

Emptied again by the time I arrived back. When I got the truck up on the lift I noticed the entire bottom of the cast oil pan had some sort of epoxy hand troweled on the bottom face of the pan. After a major cleanup of the oil mess, it was obvious the oil was coming from between this epoxy and the pan. Also there was a tremendous amount of blowby from the breather vent.

Took the truck back to my dealer. They said it was not epoxy but a factory installed sound deadener. Said all 1st gen DMax had this installed on the pans. They theorize that an injector stuck, filled the pan, and blew a seal "someplace". Said they could not isolate the leak yet (after I pointed out the obvious location.) By the way, I noticed no diesel smell in the oil.

So my questions:
1) Any '02 owners ever notice a black 1/8" thick coating on your oil pan, hand troweled on? Or has anyone heard of sound deadener used in this application?
2) Are these the same symptoms from other defective injector instances, or is my dealer trying to pin the blame on another known issue?
3) Gauging from the vent tube blow by, what are the odds I've wiped out the rings and or scuffed bearings?

Thanks for the help!

Redbone, welcome.

The sound deadener type material is on all of these. If you have fuel in the crankcase, injectors/return line seals is most likely cause. It will come out of every place possible if it gets diluted that bad. I would start be repairing the source of the leak INTERNALLY, then clean it good, Likely the external leak will go away.

My oil pan is black. From what I have seen of it, it is a cast piece of metal. Nothing on it.

The Duramax utilizes a laminated oil pan to reduce noise.. See the following link for more info... http://www.sae.org/automag/material/01-2001/material2.htm

:)

Hmph. I thought it was just paint.

Thanx!