BradyB

I have a 1963 Olds 88 with a 394 2 barrel, the engine is a rebuild that was installed in 1997 and now has about 32K miles.

After buying the car a couple weeks ago I've notice that there is an oil leak on the top of the engine somewhere. The engine was recently detailed and painted and I'm getting fresh oil spraying back from the oil breather. After a 100 miles there are a couple table spoons of oil on top of the water pump, there is oil spray on the air cleaner and passenger valve cover and intake manifold. I think I traced it back to the breather that was saturated and dripping with oil. I bought another breather but it was saturated a couple of days later.

So I decided to shove a shop rag into the breather tube, and drive for a couple miles to see saturated the rag would get. While driving at 55 I was displaying a pretty good amount of burnt oil trailing behind me. So I took out the rag and the car stopped trailing smoke.

What would be causing the engine to expel oil from the oil breather? The motor seems to have plenty of power. One of the valves sounds a little noisy but nothing serious. The engine oil seems to be clean and I'm not getting any burnt oil through the exhaust. Am I getting blow by?

What should I check or have checked? Has anyone found it necessary to install a catch can on their 394? This may be a clue but there is a hole and grommet in the side of intake tube on the air filter housing, but there is nothing hooked up to it.

I'm really kind of worried, thank you for the help.

redoldsman

I believe 1963 was the first year for the PCV valve. I would check that first. You are getting too much pressure in the crankcase.

BradyB

Thank you Sir. How does one determine if a positive crankcase ventilation valve is bad?

redoldsman

You can pull it out of the valve cover and put your finger over the end and see if it is getting vacuum with the engine running. I would just replace it since you are only talking about a few bucks.

lansing

Shake it and see if it rattles. Or remove it, clean up the blow by and drive it. If you valve cover is covered in oil after the drive, bingo. Might as well take a drive to the auto parts store anyway, pcv valves are pretty cheap. Also the hose coming from the pcv valve should attach to the hole in your air cleaner.

redoldsman

The PCV valve should attach to the base of the carb or another vacuum source on the manifold. The air cleaner will not provide the vacuum it needs. Often times the other valve cover will have a hose that vents to the air cleaner.

BradyB

So I went to O'Reily's last night and dug through their PCV valve selection. I found a slightly larger valve that offered a bit more suction.

My idea relating to the hole/grommet on the air cleaner. I'm guessing that there used to be a hose running from the breather to air cleaner, giving just a bit more vacuum to that breather.

I found a couple breathers in O'Reily's parts books but non with the proper diameter for the breather tube.

Can anyone dig up a 1963 394 picture and tell me where that hose to the intake on the air cleaner is coming from?

Thank you!

BradyB

For example, where is that big hose going off the air cleaner, where can I get a cap like the one on this breather tube? My car has A/C like this car.

BradyB

A bit more digging...

So I guess that hose is supposed to connect with the valve cover breather on some cars? Does this valve cover breather contain a PCV, what part # should I look for that breather and hose?

My car was ordered and delivered in TX, I wonder if there were different PCV solutions for CARB?

Check out this pic:
http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/..._feature1.html

BradyB

BradyB

And here's what I need, a PCV VENTILATION CRANKCASE VALVE. It looks like it uses vacuum to open the valve that sends the crank gases into the intake. Kind of the opposite of a standard PCV.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-AC-1963-...sories&vxp=mtr

I just need to figure out the fittings now.

redoldsman

I am going to make a suggestion here that will benefit you for as long as you own the car. Buy yourself a shop manual. You can probably find one or several on ebay. If you can find an original one it is a lot better than the repro ones or the ones on CD.

BradyB

I agree.

BradyB

This car was ordered and delivered in El Paso (I have the order, bill of sale).

What I'm guessing is that during 50 years of service, someone along the way decided to try to modernize the reversed pcv system which is not enough suction to keep the positive flow of the crank case at bay.

Check out the pics...

BradyB

It's plugged into a T off of the main manifold vacuum port. There is a baffle below the valve cover hole.

Last night at O'Reilly's I found the biggest PCV to match and I replaced the one that came on the car with one that seemed to have 40% larger inner diameters with about the same pcv "weight". Looking today at the engine bay, it looks like I didn't get a whole lot of oil coming out of the breather on the way into work this morning. Maybe the larger pcv is my solution for now.

I'll try and get the original set up together as a back up.

This engine is a factory rebuild from 1997 with 32K miles.

BradyB

BTW, the largest modern/off the shelf PCV that fit the valve cover has seemed to work. I no longer have any oil residue in the engine bay.