The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Engine snakeoil,

As some may know, I got my 49 3100 w/a stock 216 running approx 8 months ago. I had to pull the head and have it rebuilt but the bottom end was untouched except for a deglazeing of the rusted cylinders and the piston tops cleaned up. The truck was parked sometime in 69 and never started again until I revived it.
The odometer showed approx 99450 miles and the oil change sticker on the door showed it was due at 99500. It was kept in the dry the whole time. The oil & antifreeze still looked somewhat good which is somewhat surprising given the time frame it sat.

I've since put over 4k miles on it and it seems to run better w/use.
I experimented w/different grades of oil and settled on Rotella 15w40.
I get almost 30psi cold and avg just under 15psi when warm at speed. There's no unusual knocking, pinging or banging, just the steady ticking of the valve train.
Since getting it running it has leaked oil from just about every sealing surface, especially the front & rear main seals. It was avg'ing approx alittle over a 1 qt every 75 - 100 miles.
Being in no hurry to take it off line since I'm enjoying cruising it, I decided to try some snake oil additive to see if it would at least slow down the leaks.
Over the past month after an oil & filter change I've added 1ea 16oz bottle of Bars Leaks Rear Main Seal Repair along with 1/2 qrt of 15w40 to bring the oil back up to full when needed.
I've added 4ea 16oz bottles of the Bars Leaks over this time frame.
I'm happy to say that I've cut my oil leaking by 1/2. In other words I'm only having to add 1/2 qrt of oil every 100 miles of usage now.

Now is it the additive, the regular oil finally softening those seal or a combination of both?

Since this snake oil runs $7 a bottle I've decided to discontinue for now and only run the 15w40 until the next oil change and judge the results.

I generally don't use or recommend any kind of miracle snake oil additives but I found these results very interesting.

As a side note most of my known oil leaking was observed after engine shutdown and the drip pan floor spots indicates the leaks were mainly at the rear & front seal areas....

Now if I could only stop that valve cover from leaking...