Oil dripping from road tube!

[njlimbaugh]

Hello to all. I'm a newbie that just bought my 66th car, but my first Buick, a '40 Super Sport Coupe. I'm chasing oil leaks and found that oil is dripping out of the road vent tube! I'm guessing this is caused by plugged oil return holes in the floor of the tappet chamber, but since I'm not that familiar with the L8 there might be some other explanation. Does anyone have any another ideas? Thanks for the help.

 

[n1gzd]

Could this be caused by excessive blowby? I know that this is the case on airplane engines (oil ends up on the belly of the plane because some blew out the breather tube). Sorry for the airplane engine analogy but I thought perhaps you are seeing the same thing with your Buick.

Rebecca

 

[Aaron65]

It's possible you have plugged returns...just pull the side cover for a look and clean. It's more likely you have some blowby. My 263 is in the machine shop getting rebuilt now...It blew oil from the breather cap...turned out that it had broken rings on 2 pistons...

 

[njlimbaugh]

Thanks, all. The compression is spotty, but minimum is 75 psi, so I think the rings are OK. No smoke from the tailpipe, filler cap or road tube. When the driving season is over I'm going to yank the head and do the valves. While I'm in there I'll pull the cover and make sure the return holes are clear. I've experienced plugged drains on other types of engines that caused oil drips, I just wasn't sure if there was any unusual details I didn't know about.