She's bleedin' pretty bad...

[loglat]

Well here goes,

I have a pretty new-to-me 69 F100 Explorer with one of the FE engines... not sure if it's a 360 or a 390. Anyway, it leaks pretty much everything from pretty much everywhere, but the oil leak is pretty intense. To the point that there are trails in the parking lot... not just spots, but TRAILS. I used a bottle of Lucas Oil Leak Stop with my last oil chaged, and that seems to have helped, but I'm not there yet. It still seems to leak about a half a quart a week.

I'm not sure where the leak is coming from. At first I was thinking it was just a rear main seal, seeing as the majority of it was coming from the little notch in the bell housing. The problem is that there is a good amount of fresh oil above/in front of where the main seal is. So it may need a main seal, but thats not all it needs. I will say that from under the hood, nothing looks too bad, but if you get up underneath, it looks like the whole engine is covered in sludge. I hear the intake manifold is a common culprit on these.

At this point I'm afraid it's just going to need overhauled. I hesitate because it seems to run just fine, but short of pulling the engine and cleaning/replacing everything, I'm not sure what else I can do. Is there anything else I should consider? I need to get this fixed before I do much else with it.

Thanks!

[ToughOldFord]

Good chance it's the intake. Remove the air cleaner and get a flashlight if necessary and get a good look at the rear/center of the intake between the heads.
If you can't see it then you might want to consider cleaning the entire engine and then run it, that makes it easier to isolate where the leak is coming from.

[fordman]

you can do all the gaskets without rebuilding the engine. the intake isthe most likely from what you said. the valve covers probabl also leak or have leaked too. as well as the oil pan. that will give alot of the grime underneath on the whole bottom side. if it was only on the rear part of the engine then i would say its just the rear intake gasket.

[loglat]

You dont suppose all that gunk is holding anything in do ya? I thought about power washing it but I didnt want to make the problem any worse than it already is.

[fordman]

power wshing would help show where the leaks are coming from.

[sideoilerfe]

power wshing would help show where the leaks are coming from.

[ToughOldFord]

Normal I'm with you, I never wash an old engine. But you're leaving trails, you can't get much worse and you need to find out where the problem is so you can get it fixed.

[loglat]

Do you think it will probably need a new rear main as well? I don't know what's typical, but I wouldnt imagine any of the original 40 y/o gaskets are doing so hot.

[ToughOldFord]

The way you describe it, it doesn't sound like the rear main. If it's coming from higher up then it's going to be the intake or valve covers. Obviously rear mains aren't indestructible, but chances are you'll lose a gasket before a seal. You can pull the flywheel dust cover/inspection cover and see how dry it looks in there. If you don't see standing oil then your rear main is probably fine.

[72bumbee]

I was told by two seperate shops that I had two different leaks. One said rear main, and another said head gasket. I just hooshed the motor underneath, and got a $1 bendy mirror, started the motor and could see it oozing out of the intake. I mean it was a constant drip right onto the exhaust pipe, so it never really left a spot on the ground. If it weren't for you all, I probably would have pulled that whole motor apart looking for that leak.

[ToughOldFord]

Glad you found it and it's just the intake.
It'd be pretty odd for a head gasket to leak oil externally... not impossible, but I haven't run across it yet myself.

If you don't already know, one of the PITAs of FEs is the push rods pass through the intakes. So you have to pull the push rods before pulling the intake. Don't forget to label them so they go back in the same holes they came out of.

[loglat]

Lost oil pressure today...

I was driving home from my parents house about 80 miles away. About 70 miles in, my truck apparently decided it was time for an oil change because my pressure gauge was reading ZERO. I pulled into the closest gas station I could find, and when I stopped, oil was pouring out from underneath. I can't tell exactly where the majority of my oil leak comes from, but it seems to come from multiple places. The front of the engine behind the crankshaft wheel looks freshly wet, as well as the rear of the engine where the transmission meets. There is also however, a lot of sludge above that area, especially on the driver side. The clutch linkage looks like the oiliest part of the whole engine... at least as far as fresh oil goes. It was also dripping onto the driver side exhaust when i pulled into the station. Maybe I'll post pictures later.

Anyway, I'm led to believe that the engine threw up the oil, because in one of the grooves on top of the intake manifold was a puddle of hot dirty oil. I'm not sure what happened or why, but I ended up adding a full gallon of oil. I still dont get great pressure readings, but the dipstick reads full now.

Any thoughts? This problem went from annoying to emergent today.

[fordman]

on the back passenger side of the valve cover is a hose. under the hose is a pcv valve. take it out and shake it. do you hear anythign? if not replace it. if it rattles back to checkign the gaskets for leaks and the enigne compression on all of the cylinders. maybe you have hole in the piston. and it blowing out all of the oil because of the hole in the piston.

[loglat]

PCV rattles... back to the ol drawing board.

[fordman]

do a whole compression check of it. and then fix the bad gaskets. refill it and try to fire it back up.