Oil spray in compartment and bilge!

454 on my 87 Saltare. Never had big issues with the engine. Thursday we were skiing, and I smelled burning. Lifted the engine cover and there was oil on drivers side of engine and all over in the bilge. It looked to be coming from the head cover gaskets. It was sprayed all over that side of the engine. I got it back to the ramp (There was still oil reading on my dipstick and my pressure never dropped on the way back or my temp rise...) and home. I pulled the exhaust riser so I could get to the head cover. Pulled the head cover and the gasket looks new. I can't imagine that was where the leak was from. I remembered that when I pulled the dipstick to check the oil it wasn't all the way in. Could it be that the oil blew up through the dipstick tube? I've never heard of such a thing....I ususally run it just a hair low on oil, so there wouldn't have been any extra pressure on the system...Any ideas?

Thanks, David

hi david,

sorry to hear of the mess but hopefully that's all you'll have to deal with.

i would only be talking out of my butt if i guessed. i do know of a few other sites that get better traffic with some gear-heads that frequent.... inboardboats.com has some guys that know engines inside and out. boatered.com also has some very knowledgeable folks but they can be a bit uptight.

i know you may waste some time if you clean first and then work on it but that would probably help you diagnose where it's coming from. if you only lost a small amount, your theory isn't too far fetched. anything more serious in an engine that you continued to run would have dumped lots of oil and started overheating very fast.

if you haven't drained what's left of the oil, i might start there to see how much is left. clean the block up and refill the oil, see what happens. is it possible that some of the bolts weren't tightened down? i've replaced an exhaust gasket because water was trickling down the block, turned out the gasket was fine but the bolts needed to be tightened.

good luck and post back,
kevin

Hey Kevin, this is exactly what I've got so far...

cleaned up the block and bilge...pulled manifold and head cover. I'm pretty sure that your theory is right. I think maybe the head cover bolts just weren't down enough. One reason I think that: there was oil sitting on top of the intake manifold. I cleaned it up and ran in in my drive way last night. No leaks. (BTW, I drained 3.5 qts. of oil, so I really didn't lose as much as I thought). That's in the drive way though... I'll put it in the water Thursday and see what happens. In the mean time, one of my hoses split, so I pulled them all and will replace. I'll let you know...

David