CYLINDER HEAD LEAKING OIL

[Soulinaearthsuit]

Anyone have a situation where too much oil is collecting in the cylinder head and leaking through the gasket onto the exhaust headers? This began not long after I did a valve adjust on Connie,and I was hearing a knocking noise from the engine. Thinking I had not adjusted the valves to the correct spec or overlooked something, I pulled her apart again, but valves were in spec and everything looked normal. I put her back together and fired her up, but this time a ton of oil began pouring out through the cylinder head gasket onto the headers. Thinking I hadn't set the gasket properly, I pulled the cylinder head cover off again and this time sealed the gasket with a bead of grease and made sure it was alligned properly before replaceing the cover. However, I did notice there was excess oil sitting in the cylinder head. Again oil flowed out from the gasket when I started her up. Oil was not leaking from the bango bolt securing the oil pipe, I made sure to check this. Now I'm back to square one. Does anyone have experience or suggestions on this?

 

[colinp386]

Mike; Sounds like you have 2 separate issues. If I recall correctly the oil return from the head is via the cam chain tunnel. A fair amount of oil does pool in the head, but even if it does it should never leak out of the cover. So it sounds like the seal is still not seating correctly or the cover or head is cracked. I suggest you remove the firewall/air dam so you can get a good look at the front of the rocker seal to see where its leaking. its very easy to trap the air dam under the rocker cover or to pop the seal of the grove. I'm not a big fan of using loads of goop on the sucker, just a smear round the cut-outs is all you need and a very good look to make sure the gasket is properly seated is all you need. Also make sure the dowels are positioned correctly on the spark plug gaskets the cover should feel very firm and NOT rock before you tighten down on the screws. I guess last but not least make sure you did not leave anything in there like a 10mm wrench LoL The second issue is the knocking your hearing from the engine. That's more of a concern. It could be you have bent a rod depending how loud the knock is. I if its pretty loud I suggest you measure with a vernier the piston height at TDC through the spark plug hole to see if one of them is low. If it is, hopefully its #2 or #3 which are the easiest rods to replace. Best of luck, figuring it out. CP Colin Prior Cogmos Committee Chairman Lake Forest Park WA COG#7767

 

[Brett0769]

On my first valve adjustment the gasket was just a smidge out of line up against the firewall and it produced the oil leak you described here, voluminous cloud of smoke when I stopped, very scary. The gasket getting out of line next to the firewall really is quite insidious. If you drop to one knee, press the firewall forward a little and use a flashlight to look down the entire length of the gasket it's a good way to ensure it's seated prior to tightening the cover down. Also, placing a 2mm-ish bead of high heat RTV around the groove in the cover and letting the gasket set in it prior to reassembly helps a lot when putting the cover back in place by keeping the gasket firmly attached to the cover. I don't have any experience with knocking up to this point and Colin's explanation is certainly a gloomy one, hopefully that's not the case. Keep an eye on this topic, others far wiser than I will chime in, hopefully someone who has lived through this very issue and come out on top.

 

[Paulie]

+1 with Colin & Brett re the leek. Haveya done a valve adj befo? The gasket is VERY EZ to git outta place when re-installing. BTDT. And ck yer gasket fer damage. I kleen the 4 1/2 moons on the head & gasket, apply glue & glue the gasket onto the head.