Stabsthedrama

Well it finally happened... someone finally said something to me about working on the trucks in my parking spaces. He's the super, and wasn't being a dick about it, and had mentioned he let it slide for a long time, but ya... can't be wrenching here anymore. At least I got done like 90% of the work I'll need to do on this thing...

Frikkin. Sucks.

Anyway, time to beat the RMS dead horse a bit more... before I had to pack it up last night, I did get under there to try to diagnose the oil leak. It seems I'm not burning nearly as much as I'm leaking. I had the bottom drip cover off, but didn't have time to get the dust cover off. I was watching the oil filter adapter very closely - not a drip.

I already did the vcg with a felpro, there's no way it's that. There wasn't a single drip under there until I revved it up a bit - got back under - boom - pretty quick, solid drip right in between the dust cover and trans, and never out of the oil filter adapter.

That does leave the dist. gasket as cruiser mentions, but I still kinda doubt that...

From what I've seen, the RMS is supposed to sit ~4 inches above the oil line, and you'll have much more of a leak when going up big hills, etc - which lines up with what I usually see - I have a very big, and quick speed limit mountain I need to go over every day, and it seems to be the biggest issue. However, like I said - it did leak even just sitting parked and revving it.

Guess I'm just trying to make sure I want to tackle this before winter. I can go to my wife's friend's driveway down the street and do it, and I'll probably do an injector swap while I'm at it to try to get it all done.

I'll be spraying off the side of the engine real good today, and I'll be monitoring it as much as possible.


So... few questions:

How would I 100% verify a distributor gasket leak?

Is it possible that the head itself is leaking? (not just the vcg)

Is it worth doing the oil pump while I'm in there? Seems like a few bolts, and it's like a $40-45 part, seems like it'd be worth it, but might be one of those if it ain't broke don't fix it types of things?

What can I look for while the pan is dropped as far as bearing wear/stuff being wrong or messed up in general?

DFlintstone

I had bought a new RM seal and pan gasket. Then I discovered that a hose, (not the stock rigid tube), for the vent to the air cleaner was kinked. That made crank-case pressure push oil out the RM seal. I took care of the vent and returned the stuff! Not really likely it's your issue, but do be sure that front vent is free to vent.

Stabsthedrama

Thanks for the tip, which hose exactly? Any picture? I'll try running it with the dipstick out too, that should verify this.

DFlintstone

The 1/2 inch tube from forward on the valve cover to the air cleaner. If it's stock, it's almost surely fine. If someone messed with it, like put a filter on it or anything else, there is some chance it's not venting freely. I'm curious, are you seeing oil in the air-cleaner? ....btw, if you left the dipstick out you may well find your dizzy all covered in oil!

Stabsthedrama

Oh the tubing from the vcg? That's all free - was one of the first things I did. The hoses should all be pretty good, have checked them all. But yes, seeing oil in the air cleaner box. It was bad when I first got it, degunked the valve cover a bit and trimmed down the drain tubes, and redid the CCV hose and grommet with a new one, the hoses seem to be nice and clear - it has reduced the oil in the airbox by quite a bit, but it still happens. I figure I'll just live with it. And btw after the restore and oil change (castrol) I am seeing like 10% of the smoke out the oil fill cap that I was previously, so that's good.

Seems to be venting quite well, and seems to just simply be the RMS (or the pan gasket, but either way gotta do both)
Isn't too surprising, I can tell the truck sat for a very long time and the seal probably dry rotted a bit. I mean it's an 89 and I'm just about to roll over to 140k today... that's proof enough that it sat a very long time. Same thing happened with my truck. Only with the truck, the rms like completely blew out, and rather quickly, like in the course of a few days from drip to dump. This one seems to be getting worse, however. Yesterday I saw a pretty steady drip after driving and sitting idle, and when I first got it it really didn't leak from underneath, just from the vcg which I replaced. At least I don't have to remove a gigantic frikkin transmission (on the ground) to do the 2 piece seal like I did with the truck's 1 piece.

And I meant just idling with the dipstick out, if I rev it a bit with it out and never see and drips, it would indicate pressure build up.

Gonna try tackling it next weekend. I'm sure it won't go as smoothly and quickly as I would hope, but we shall see.