Mystery oil leak from top passanger side of motor

[griz_83ho]

I already have this in another thread, about replacing the rear main. Wanted to start another one in regards to the current issue.

Basically every time after I had the car running and I shut the car off it would start to leak oil from somewhere in the top passanger side corner of the intake or head and run down the tranny and block and leak on to starter, crossover pipe, etc. causing it to smoke upon the next start up. Again it is only when you shut the car off and it leaks oil at a decent rate, not just a drop an hour. Then after it leaks so much oil it will stop .

I currently have the entire intake, etc off the car, and gaskets don't look bad. What the hell could it be?

 

[robzombie]

I currently have the entire intake, etc off the car, and gaskets don't look bad. What the hell could it be?

Your typical Buick TR gremlins that should be obvious, but will elude you until you are about to sell the car out of frustration.

A week before you put it up for sale you will find it and fix it for less than 10 bucks, but will have lost half your sanity looking for it for all that time.

Just kidding I hope it's obvious and you find it, the most common answers are check the V/cover and intake gaskets but I'm sure you already did that.

 

[QwikStop]

It shouldn't leak after you shut it down unless its puddling and then running down afterwords....hows your PCV seal, is there a lot of oil standing in the intake area?

 

[griz_83ho]

Before removing intake the only area with oil I could find was in the back of the block behind the intake which is why I pulled it. When I pulled the intake off there was some standing oil amongst the lifters. Nothing terrible but a decent amount, and also some antifreeze that I don't know if it was from when I pulled some of the coolent lines. Thing that is getting me is why the hell it starts to run out when the car is off and there is no more pressure being built in the motor. It's like a valve opens and let's it out.

 

[Jay J]

I believe that QwikStop was referring to oil leaking from the PCV grommet on the top side of the intake, and running off the back of the engine...

 

[griz_83ho]

Got ya, no overall the intake was dry on top, did not look to be leaking at all.

 

[aminga]

You answered it in the other thread there was no RTF in the corners of the rubber end seals

 

[QwikStop]

You answered it in the other thread there was no RTF in the corners of the rubber end seals[/quote
You gotta use a little silicone in the corners and where the gaskets meet in order to prevent leaks...do this when you reassemble everything and you should be good to go.

My post wound up in the quote, lol

 

[jim0207]

I had to use the fluorescent dye to trace down my oil leak, mine was exactly where yours is. It was the back seal on the intake. I had convinced my self that it was not that seal. So again, I reinstalled the intake paying more attention to the RTV placement. I was wrong, it was the seal. It stopped leaking.

 

[griz_83ho]

We'll we will hopefully know tonight or tomorrow. The intake gaskets just came in so they will be installed later. Thanks again guys, huge help. Weather is 50 today so hopefully this works and we are ready to do

 

[griz_83ho]

So was picking up the intake gasket and when I picked it up it had a vally pan gasket in the kit. Question is since they didn't run that before she I put it back in ? The intake gasket they used I found was said to be used on a stage 1 block. It's basically just the gasket that goes on the intake runners on the heads, and the intake sits on those . So should I run the vally pan gasket or order those gaskets that are already installed? The lifter bank is not solid like a stage 1 block should be.

 

[Jay J]

The cars came from the factory with the valley pan gasket. As mentioned in the other thread, the pan keeps the hot oil away from the bottom of the intake manifold and also the PVC.

 

[Guess]

After an engine rebuild, mine was leaking oil everywhere you described. I thought it was the back of the intake as well. I thought it could be the valve cover but it didn't seem to be coming from there. I was going to pull the valve cover just to check and the right rear bolt was hard to turn and kind of popped loose after a 1/4 turn. I re-torqued it down and it doesn't leak a drop.