My engine leaked oil from the day I owned it. The 79 L82 engine was rebuilt by the previous owner with a 327-350 HP cam and only had about 3000 miles on the clock. The stock heads were ported and the stock intake now wears a Holley 600 CFM single feed carb. That said, the leaks were at valve covers, VC breathers and oil pan. I replaced the VC gaskets with steel rubber coated units and sealed with silicone sealer. The four piece pan gasket was replaced with a one piece Felpro unit. All the original major leaks are gone, but I can't stop it from pushing oil out of the driverside valve cover K&N shielded breather and oil filler cap. At one point I boiled the K&N breather until no more oil came out of it. I even added a rubber gasket under the filler cap, but it only slowed the leak. The oil leak is noticable on a drive at hwy speed for 30 minutes or more, so it is slow. Yesterday, I drove home about three hours and my wrapped headers had oil on them and when I stopped you could smell the oil smoking. It was down about one pint of oil. I have only used Mobil 1 10w-30 since owning the car. It would appear the crankcase is building pressure and pushing it out, but i can't figure out why and how to resolve the issue. The other valve cover has one breather grommet which has a PCV ported to the back of the carburetor. There is no leak on that side any longer. My thoughts are that this is a piston ring issue that may be more difficult to correct. Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

 

If you're pumping oil onto wrapped headers, don't drive the car! You can start a nasty underhood fire that way. I would check the PCV system to make sure that it's working properly by pulling out the valve at idle to see if there is a strong vacuum at the bottom of the valve's opening port. If there isn't, there is some type of restriction in the system that must be corrected.

Judging from what you have stated in your post, you need to do a leakdown test next to see which, if any, of the cylinders have lost their ring tension and are now pressurizing the crankcase instead of contributing to the engine's power.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks for your response. I have been thinking of having the leak- down test, but just haven't had the time to schedule it. I'm purdy handy, but don't have the tool to do it. I was thinking there was something I was overlooking that would solve the problem. The engine runs fine otherwise and I bracket race it regularly.

 

Jegs sells the tool and it's relatively inexpensive. Then when you're done, you can put it away in your toolbox.

 

Yeah...you are right, there is always another tool to buy. My buddy Fuzzy Dice is taking his car to a speed shop to have something or other done tomorrow. I have been wanting to check out some of the cars they are working on, so I'm going to meet him there. They can diagnose my problem quickly and I can finally resolve this issue. I am waiting on a pair of fastburn Vortec heads I bought from Durango_Boy to arrive. A spare motor will replace this one after I've had a chance to build it. Before putting this one in storage, it would be nice to know it has no issues. It has the L-82 bottom end with all the good parts with less than 5K on a fresh rebuild.