well, i bought this 71 SS 350 a couple months ago and have been working on it ever since. when i got it, i was losing large amounts of oil - like 2 quarts every 120 miles. i fixed the valve cover leak, i fixed the oil pan gasket leak... but i am still loosing oil! and there's virtually no puddle when i park (a drop or two if anything).

every now and then i would notice some oil by the intake manifold bolts. aha! so this is getting noticibly worse, today when i looked under there a saw a spatter pattern that looked like oil just shot out the bottom of the manifold.

i'm probably wrong, but isn't the intake supposed to be sucking in, so why is it spitting out?! what can be causing this... is there some kind of excess pressure thats blowing out my intake gasket?

any ideas would be great
thanks!

leaking on one end? both ends? by the distributor? which bolts had oil on them?

Could it be from pcv, or breather?

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The oil is sitting in small in small puddles on pretty much all the intake manifold bolts...

I've had this problem also. Check around your oil pressure gauge sending unit where it mounts in the back. If it's not tight enough, it'll squirt oil all around the engine compartment. As for the puddles around the intake bolts...the only way I could fix those were to keep tightening the sh*t out of the valve cover bolts until the heads liked the seal and stopped leaking.
Hope this helps!

you also want to make sure the pcv valve/hose is drawing vac., if the hose is plugged, or the port on the carb is plugged you will get a build up of pressure in the engine and it will 'blow out' the 'chin strap' gaskets at the front or rear of the intake and make quite an oil mess.

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71 ss 350/4spd 69 nova 350/th350 www.americaniron.net (http://www.americaniron.net)

You'll get oil on the manifold bolts when the crankcase gets pressurized too much and it will spit out...that is if your intake gasket is shot. Check the PCV valve/hose and make sure it isn't clogged up. At which bolts on the manifold is there oil? I had a leak on hte front and rear seals of the manifold where it sits on the top of the block in between the heads. Also check the distributor gasket.

i replaced the pcv and hose and its still the same. i'm thinking that the manfold gasket must be shot, even though the previous owner told me he had it replaced when installing the new carb. :/

He probably changed the carb-to-intake gasket with the new carb, and not necessarily the intake manifold gasket. I wouldn't see why someone would just change the intake gaskets when changing the carb. way too much work to do unless it was bad and needed changing.

double check the edges of the valve covers and see if they're bottoming out against the intake,,especially if they're aftermarket ones..

Sounds like a silly answer BUT, oil will come up through the threads of the manifold bolts. Most mechanics use a little sealer on the threads.