The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 216 with constant oil leaks

Folks, I have an original 216 motor in my work ute.

Trying to work out reasons behind the leaks, statically just sitting there it leaks oil

I am wondering if I may have the wrong oil dip stick on the engine, can anyone tell me what level the oil in the sump pan should sit at, should it sit lower than the oilpans ends

Going to pull the oil pan of tomoz and put new gaskets on, but whilst there I can check where the dipstick marks sit in relation to the crank

Thanks

Steve

Hi Steve...or g'day. Before you pull the oil pan you might check two other things: 1. the valve rocker arm cover gasket. If you reach around to the back side of the head and run your finger across, you should not have oil on your finger. This can leak and often does. 2. the harmonic balancer seal. This is more difficult to check but if you feel at the front bottom of the camshaft gear cover there should be no oil. This can leak and often does. Please also look around where the oil pressure gauge tube connects to the engine and feel at the rear corner of the side cover of the engine (the cover for the valve lifters). The engine sits at a pronounced angle and oil runs naturally to the rear bottom of that area. If the gasket stops sealing, quite a bit of oil will run out the bottom rear corner and it will do this even when the engine isn't running (until all the oil present leaks out, that is). Good luck! We're enjoying watching "Offspring" by the way. Neat tv series we watched before and now it is on Tubi again.

The crankcase holds 5 quarts. Drain the oil and add 5 quarts. After it's had time to sit for a while and settle, pull the dipstick and see where it is. If it's on the full mark, you're fine. If it's not, you probably have the wrong dipstick or dipstick tube.

Just make a new full mark on your dipstick if this is the case.

If you have a canister oil filer, add another quart but that won't change the full mark on the dipstick since the quart of oil will remain in the canister after you start driving the truck.

There's one more source of a leak that hasn't been mentioned yet- - - - -the core plug at the back of the engine behind the camshaft. That's a pretty unlikely situation, but I've seen it happen on occasion. The most common leak is the rope type oil seal at the back of the crankshaft, just ahead of the flywheel. Good luck!
Jerry

When was the last time the oil pan was removed? You may have 2 quarts of sludge in the bottom of it.
If at some point you drained the oil pan, then add 5 quarts, you will be 2 quarts overfilled. That will likely leak for some time after you shut the engine off.

So, what a morning.

I started by just degreasing everything down, it looks as mentioned above, the main oil leak is coming from back of lifter cover at rear of engine, there is a deep black track of glistened muck that runs from rear of the cover down between starter motor and then onto the sump area.

I pulled the clutch cover and surprisingly it looked really good, couple of small oil deposits but not enough that I’m concerned on rear main seal anymore, have a spare one ready just in case

Bottom of the fuel pump had a small build up oil and front of sump, so likely timing cover

So re-evaluating everything and starting the cleaning first

And……

The gearbox 3 spd was empty of oil

Thanks, yes the diff oil was just under full.

I have cleaned everything down, topped everything up and will do 5mile drive tomoz as I take rubbish bins to the local tip and then will get back underneath it and see what I can find

A trick I heard on here was to gasket cement the rocker cover gasket to the head of the engine when installing the rocker cover . Getting that gasket crooked is easy to do . This allows you to remove the cover for valve adjustments or whatever and continuously get a good seal. With the gasket in place and cemented down it forms a little dam for the oil and prevents it from running down the block.

On the other hand, if it's leaking then you know you still have oil. When it stops leaking you have to add some.

So three main leaks staticly

Front of diff at carrier seal, mid way up, its leaking through one of the retainer bolts staticly

3 spd transmission just above the drain hole it’s leaking through the box, so likely a cracked transmission box

Engine staticly leaking from the thick gasket area at the rear radius section of the pan, was surprised the oil level would sit that high to start with for it to seep out through the seal staticly

What do you have for a dipstick and dipstick tube? The correct ones would let you know if its overfilled.
Have you ever had the valve cover, oil pan, timing cover or lifter side cover off.
Given the areas where you say that you have static leaks may actually be caused by a severely sludged up engine to the point that the drain holes are severely restricted, causing the pooled up oil to leak out through your seals rather than going through the drain holes after shutdown.

I do not know if the dipstick and tube are original to the ute, when I bought it 5yrs ago it was an ex farm vechile that had seen better days and was unroadworthy and unlicensed but was being used on the farm to haul things

I got it licensed and have been using it ever since