well,thats it! i dont' have a problem with the vette but this is on my other hotrod.i have asked around but,on my 455 pontiac tempest i have an aftermarket HEI. its not stock by far but i have pulled the cap several times this month to recurve it and time it . i noticed one day it had oil in the bottom of the housing and it always leaked from the back of the motor...?but oil in the housing is bad and i just noticed a little puddle in the bottom. i bet my gaskets bad but easy fix and, wait, its in the distributor too!? what possibly could cause the dist. to get oil in it.how can oil pass through the shaft into the housing.it drives good and idles great acctually,its just a thing u dont want to happen driving out of town and the freeway rpms have enough to bring a load of oil in the cap casing a wet rotor and can cause damage to it. it doesnt fill up hardly at all and the internals are not damp or soaked but its a problem. is there a seal in the shaft thats bad? i dont' know,im not a distribtor expert......yet! :cry any help would greatly be appreciated and this does apply to all HEI cars not just old clunker poncho's :jester

 

If you take the distributor out and disassemble it you will see that there is in fact a small screen in the center of it near the pickup coil that allows ventilation. My guess is that you "could" have a high crankcase pressure and it is forcing oil up into that vent. Have you checked your PCV valve lately?

 

well,yes! i have seen some weird so far in relation to crankcase pressure,it has blow the dipstick about an inch upward throught the tube! no oil from the tube but alot of pressure .thats some pressure acutally casue my dipstick is rather tight in the tube.. :eek: i have breathers and a manifold pcv resurculating though each other.is that wrong.the breather is obviously a breather but the others are running into one anther back through the air cleaner assembly.kindof normal i thought,but thank u scorp that is a concern now possibly.thats alot of pressure and the oil is smoking hot.i changed to full synthetic mobil 1 and hope for cooler oil temp but i have no cooler for the oil. PCV next! :confused: