Noticed a drip at the bottom of the bell housing on a freshly rebuilt 331. The reason for the teardown of the motor in the first place was I simply built too much compression into it and head gaskets were sacrificed.

I was parking this car on an incline on my Kwik Lift. Probably shouldn't do that for any period of time. Figured oil got past the main seal and was splashing out the bell housing. Been parking the car car flat (after wiping up after each drive) and the oil leak persists.

Since by this time I probably have the most costly 302 on the planet, I figured I needed to take some action. I used dye trace and a black light in order to determine the source of the leak. All things point to leaking at the rear head gasket on the drivers side. Then it snakes it's way down around the clutch cable housing and finally puddles at the bottom of the bell housing.

I only know what I know when it comes to engines and that's not much. But I don't think oil can leak from a head gasket. Going on that "assumption", I concentrated first on the valve covers. I replaced the FelPro permadry gaskets for standard FelPro 1/4 cork/lam gaskets mounted on studs. I subsequently chucked any spark plug wire mounting gizmos that were mounted to the VC.


Next, I dumbed down the Oil pump from a Melling High Pressure pump to a standard volume/standard pressure Melling M68. Still the problem persists, but it's less severe. The valve cover gaskets are dry as a bone and I can't see any obvious leak from the rear of the intake which "appears" to be sealed up pretty good (had a problem with this prior).



So I am looking for some direction at this point. Any takers? Can oil leak from a head gasket? I don't see how it could unless something is really, really wrong. Oil is not under pressure between the head and block and it's only path is the drain back holes (two I believe). If memory serves me, in order for oil to leak from between the block and head, it would have to traverse 4 big cylinder bores and a multitude of water jackets in order to seep out. It would look more like muck, not clear oil on the outside.


I am not running studs on my AFR heads and they are torqued to spec. I can't say what head gaskets are on it currently as I did not do the engine rebuild. And one more detail: I have installed an M/E Wagner dual flow PCV valve on the drivers side VC, with an Air/Oil separator piped in between the intake. I am catching way too much oil for my liking but I don't want to change things all at once.


Oil pressure if 55 PSI at idle and 70ish under load. Any thoughts are much appreciated.


RickP