My car is smoking like a bug truck. It just started a couple of days ago, and it's getting worse. Oil is getting on the driver's side exhaust manifold, towards the back. There's oil on the back two plug wire boots, so I think the leak is high pretty high up. Valve cover gasket was my first guess, but I just replaced it and the old one didn't look bad. It still might be the valve cover gasket - I might have it on wrong, I'm going to check tonight. But what else should I check? Is there a pressure tap or something on the head I should look for? I did just change the oil, so I'll make sure the filter's on tight and not double-ringed or something. But I don't think it's coming from around there. Oil pressure is good, temp is good, engine is running fine. It's just smoking like hell from the driver's side.
VC gasket or (back of intake manifold if its a V-8).Did you crank down the VC bolts???? If you did,that more than likely pushed out the VC gasket.just snug the bolts when you tighten them.Good luck.
I agree. It's very easy to overtighten the vc bolts and create a leak. Take the vc off and inspect the gasket closely. You can probably see where it is leaking at.
Oh yeah, it's the valve cover gasket. I tore it. Fortunately these things come in pairs, and the passenger's side has has held up fine. So I have another one. Maybe I did overtighten it, I don't know. I won't this time. So what's the consensus on RTV? Should I put down some red Permatex on both sides of the gasket, or leave it dry? Passenger's side is dry, but that one's cork. This one's rubber, if that makes a difference. Thanks!
Yeah, I'm Permatexing it. I made a bead to glue it to the valve cover, got some bolts in all the holes, now it's drying. Hopefully this will ensure the gasket stays lined up while I'm putting it on. Never had to make such a big deal over these things before... I've replaced a valve cover gasket or two, I promise. Oh well. Thanks y'all.
I did one on an old Cadillac 472 years ago.drivers side too(awful to do)did it 4 times before I got it to not move/rip/leak or push out on me.So dont feel bad,these things happen.
That's one of the reasons I went to studs, instead of bolts. All you have to do is lay the gasket on the studs and put the vc on.
Okay, no, that was not the problem. I did screw up the gasket, but I'm not so sure I needed to change it in the first place. I just had a chance to road test after my fix last night. I ran about 2-3 miles down the interstate and back. It almost seems like this leak is under pressure. It's definitely made worse when I put my foot in it, and I think I lost about 2 quarts of oil. It's on jackstands right now cooling so I can check it out, but there is oil everywhere now. I can see it's poured down the driver's side of the transmission tunnel and it's hitting the exhaust pipe on that side. It's also all over the transmission linkage, transmission pan, and it's high up the back of the engine so I don't think it's the rear seal, but I don't know. This has started since I installed the transmission. I can't think of how that would be related, but thought I'd mention it. I've also got it hot a couple of times due to a bad thermostat, but that's been dealt with and it didn't get too hot. Maybe the pressure and heat pushed a seal out? Is there anything high up on the back of these engines (302) that would be under pressure? If this was a Chevy I'd start looking at the tap for the oil pressure sender back there, but I don't know if the Ford has anything like that. Would a head gasket cause this? I don't have water in the oil or oil in the water, and it runs fine. Someone mentioned the intake manifold. I'm sure not looking forward to taking that off. Would the back of the intake blow this much oil? Thanks for your help...
Could be the rear intake manifold gasket. Did you use the gasket that comes with the kit? They pop out if they get torqued down too much. A lot of people just use about a 1/4 inch bead of gasket sealer.
I'll check that. There's oil behind the intake manifold, but I can't tell how new it is, or whether it came from my brief valve cover gasket leak. This is a lot of oil though... It's blown from one end of the exhaust to the other, onto the rear carrier. It's all over the driver's side front frame rail, but not the passenger side. I'm starting to think if I just get under it and get my wife to rev it, (at the carb, not inside the car) I might get to see where it's come out...
I put my money on that rear intake gasket. Like Don said, use a good bead of RTV gasket sealer and forget that cork gasket. That's the only other place for oil to come from like that. Let the sealer sit a few minutes before installing the intake back on.
Are you sure that the oil drains in the left head are not plugged up.Also a stuck shut pcv valve can cause the crank case to pressurize and blow oil past seals/gaskets
Well I have confirmed it's not the rear intake gasket. I cleaned up as much as I could. (Ask me how much that sucked.) It had to be done though, else there was just no way to determine the source. I figure the ~80 mph wind under the car served to de-localize the problem a bit. From above I could see the now-cleaned area behind the intake gasket pretty clearly. I fired up the car and revved it, and it stayed clean. After running it I had a pool of oil underneath the car, but rather than investigate that I just shut it down and cleaned the whole thing up again. I then got under it, got my wife to rev it up a few times, and I got some answers... I got more questions than answers really, but here's what I know. A little river formed and began running down the left side of the inspection plate on the bellhousing. It then hit the exhaust pipe and started to caramelize. As I tried to discern where it was coming from, the smoke came. I peered through the gathering cloud and observed technicolor smurfs making sweet Kama Sutra love to the sound of Iron Butterfly's Innagaddadavida. When I came to and the garage stopped spinning, I decided revving it was not the answer. So I cleaned it up yet again, got back underneath it with the engine idling, and patiently waited for the blood to flow. Didn't take long. There's a pivot point cast into the block where part of the column shift linkage goes. (I assume this is also where the "z bar" might go if I had a clutch) The oil seems to come from there. Impossible, right? There's not some kind of seal behind that, surely. That would be some stupid engineering, so it has to be coming from above that. And it's simply collecting there before being distributed all the hell under the car. Right? I guess it just has to be the valve cover gasket then, again. Either it's a pressure thing like Mavman said, (which I think I can rule out - PCV is fine and I have a breather oil cap) or I am just that bad at putting a valve cover on a Ford. When I take the valve cover off again, I'll check those drain holes... Man this just seems like way too much oil to be coming from a valve cover gasket though.
