Car's going on a lift tomorrow... What to look for.

[alexandre]

Tomorrow my friend who runs a Ford dealer will do a tire swap to my new to me OEM silver 135's. He told me he'd put the car on a lift for the entire time it takes to mount the tires, balance, etc. and will let me chill under it in the meantime. I'd like to perform a thorough inspection of the undercarriage, etc. while I can walk around comfortably under there. I wrote down the following list:

- Oil pan (yellow oil light at shutoff - I'm losing some oil, have to add like 1/4 qt every 3 days, OFHG & VCG are done, no smoke from exhaust at any time)
- Motor mounts
- Tie rods
- Control arm ball joints & bushings
- Check sway bar endlinks all around
- PS lines for ATF leaks
- Inspect all 4 springs for cracks/rust
- RTAB, rear subframe/diff/rear CA bushings
- Inspect rear subframe for cracks

Anything else you'd check ? Any other leak sources better evaluated from under car ?What shields should I remove from underneath the car apart from the big plastic engine cover?

[Hermes]

Tranny mounts (mine were bad around 80k), center support bearing, guibo, brake lines, and exhaust hangers. I can't really think of much else

[WOLFN8TR]

Tranny Fluid & Filter.

Got to do mine this weekend, would love to have a lift to use.
I have an automatic.

[johnrando]

Plus, make sure the bottom of the car is still there.

[edlvrt]

Diff seals, CV boots, shocks for leaks

[alexandre]

Wow that was really interesting! These dealer techs really have it easy compared to us with our jack stands, laying on the floor! Underside of the car was in super good shape, not one bushing was too worn out so I'm probably gonna tackle all of them gradually as a bunch of them are original. Not an ounce of rust under the car, which is especially surprising given that it was driven 25,000 mi/yr in CT winters.

I noticed some oil leaking in a few places. I'm gonna rinse under the engine/tranny as there's a lot of old crud left there from my OFHG job. I did notice some fresh oil drips from the tranny/engine junction... I'm hoping it's just a loose bolt. Clutch was done 30k ago so I'd hate to get in there again... How much does a rear main seal job usually cost ?