When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
i started another thread here recently about oil leaks and its led me to a pretty terrifying discovery LMAO. I found some oil in my driver side side pipe not a ton but it was pretty bad while the passenger was pretty clean. Ive also been struggling with some oil leaks here, and when trying to find reasons for the leaks PCV was brought up. Now from my understanding if the PCV isn’t working properly that would cause a ton of crankcase pressure which could or would lead to my leaks, and what it could also be causing is oil to make it through the valves into the combustion chamber then my exhaust is this possible? I’m very much hoping it is because if not that then i have a whole box of expensive problems it could be. So please yall am i being hopefully delusional or could this be the case?
Any significant oil getting past the valves would cause noticeable blue smoke and oily spark plugs.
Do you have the PCV on one valve cover and a breather hose to the air cleaner on the other? If the PCV isn't working, excess blow-by is going to go out the path of least resistance — up the breather into the air cleaner. Is the inside of your air cleaner housing oily? The PCV's job is pulling fresh air from the air cleaner through the block to the carbureter for it to be burned in the normal engine combustion. The goal is to minimize release of the oil vapor from the spinning components & fuel vapors that escape the rings (blow-by) into the atmosphere as was done up to the mid-'60s.
Oil is pretty tricky in that it spreads out extremely thinly such that a small bit can coat a large area. The volume of oil in the exhaust pipe would be pretty hard to determine unless you found puddles of it.
Oil in your exhaust pipe? As in wet oil? All the way down the full length of the exhaust and through the muffler? WOW! And..... It still runs?
Have you checked your oil level?
Do you check it often?
How much oil are you going through?
Or just maybe you are delusional ?
This is probably not the problem but maybe your exhaust valve guides are shot or are missing the seals. a few years ago I had oil running down my driver side head under the header tube. long story short my exhaust guides had no seals on them on the new brodix race rite heads - Brodix does not put them on the exhaust guides. oil was running down the guide into the exhaust port then leaking through the header gasket. part of the problem is the race rites pool oil in the back of the head but with no seals on the valve stems lots of oil was leaking into the port.
Pat
here are two pics one from each side of the engine. Yes they are from different times and stuff has changed but the PCV system is the same in both. Does it look correct and like it’s set up properly? And yes i know it’s kinda crazy but i have side pipes with the least restrictive mufflers they sell so the oil doesnt have to travel far LOL. And it’s not much it was a drop or two but it also seems to be leaking out where the side pipes Slide Over the collector which leads me to believe theres a small puddle in there so its enough to really scare me here. I havent been able to measure how much ive lost since i just discovered it yesterday, but my dipstick says it isn’t much but its lower. When i did the plugs with the side pipes the old ones were a little black and the threads were a little oily. I already got a new valve so im gonna throw it in tonight. But my question here still stands could my PCV theoretically be the culprit? Or is my engine for sure really really hurt? What’s the order of operations i should do here?
You may have a leaky exhaust valve seal. I had this problem on a rebuilt set of heads. I had oil all the way to the connection where exhaust connects to the mufflers. Did not burn blue. A slight grey like it was running rich. I was stumped at first, rebuilt heads with viton seals. My understanding is the oil leaking down the guide to the exhaust valve does not enter the combustion chamber but is blown out and not totally burned. So no noticeable blue smoke. I found two torn viton seals only on the exhaust valves. Replaced the seals. Problem solved. Still not happy with the rebuilder. Wasted a lot of time tracking this problem. You may have worn or no remaining seal on an exhaust valve.
Two of these viton seals were torn on two exhaust valves upon install. Oil in the exhaust. No blue smoke.
You may have a leaky exhaust valve seal. I had this problem on a rebuilt set of heads. I had oil all the way to the connection where exhaust connects to the mufflers. Did not burn blue. A slight grey like it was running rich. I was stumped at first, rebuilt heads with viton seals. My understanding is the oil leaking down the guide to the exhaust valve does not enter the combustion chamber but is blown out and not totally burned. So no noticeable blue smoke. I found two torn viton seals only on the exhaust valves. Replaced the seals. Problem solved. Still not happy with the rebuilder. Wasted a lot of time tracking this problem. You may have worn or no remaining seal on an exhaust valve.
Two of these viton seals were torn on two exhaust valves upon install. Oil in the exhaust. No blue smoke.
im really hoping its not that LOL do not wanna pull off the heads. But im real sorry that builder did that thats some bullshit.
PCV problems
