Last night I changed the oil to a break in oil (non detergent 30 weight) ran the engine to warm it up,the oil light stayed on the whole time?( 2-3 min. ) shut it down covered it up went to the house for the night. This morning went out to check for leaks,(had a small leak before the oil change) there was about 3 Qts of oil onder the car! no leaks at the filter,no leaks at the strainer! appears to be from the oil pump or the cooler. can these parts be removed with out dropping the engine? It was said I might have blown the cooler with the H.D. oil pump. Sure don`t want to drop the engine again so soon.

Sounds to me like something burst. UNless it has been leaking a little bit from the same area for a while I'd say that something catastrophically failed. I had that happen to me once and it ended up being the cooler. Its tough to tell where its coming from, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cooler was the problem. And as far as I know there is no way to remove the cooler without dropping the engine. You can replace the seals, which could also be the problem, although it is a frustrating job.


-Tony

Boy Do I feel stupid Didn`t properly tighten the drain plug! Oh well lesson learned(glad it wasn`t the hard way)

I was gonna say that the oil cooler will leak gallons witha blown seal while the engine is running, but it is high enough from the sump that it wouldn't drain all your oil out on the ground. It had to be something simple like the plug. Glad you found it that way rather than out on the road when your light came on.