Oil leak up high on upright engine?

[Andy70Bus]

Hey folks, I have a '70 bus with upright engine, newer dual port with doghouse cooler, alternator, and a Weber progressive carb.

I am seeing oil seeping down the alternator stand from above the angle where the oil filler neck comes in to it from the side.

It seems to me that there should not be oil up there to be leaking down...

Has anyone else seen this? Thoughts?

Thanks,
Andy

[Wildthings]

Pictures would be nice. I suspect that with a crappy aftermarket air cleaner on your progressive the oil in your blowby is leaking down onto your alternator.

[Amskeptic]

[busdaddy]

Also look over the filler bulb for pinholes from rust from the inside and confirm it's not loose or the gasket between it and the alternator stand is damaged.
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[Andy70Bus]

Hey all,

Thanks for the feedback on this thread. After reading a lot more threads on this forum, I decided to update this one instead of starting a new one or piggybacking on someone else's.

The problem was indeed the breather running up to the aftermarket air cleaner on the progressive. I found that the pan at the bottom of the air cleaner was filling up with oil and then the oil was leaking back down, and I was seeing it appear at the bottom of the alternator stand.

So, I did a lot of reading on here and decided to switch to a breather box. I bought the EMPI standard one, and installed it exactly as described on here in several threads and on the instructions: Vented the forward upper corner of the valve covers and ran the breather tube from the oil filler neck to the box. I mounted the breather box on the "firewall" panel between the engine and fuel tank, about even with the top of the fan housing.

For about a week I drove locally every day, generally 55 mph or less, but enough to get the oil up to full temp (approx. 230 degrees on my gauge). Everything was fine, and the oil leakage seemed to be corrected.

Then yesterday, I made a long highway drive and the other shoe dropped. Driving the NY Thruway at a steady 65 mph for about 50 miles, I stopped to check the engine and found it completely covered in oil. The entire engine compartment was coated with fine oil droplets...

I did not have an option to turn back, so over the course of 300 miles I wound up replenishing about 1.5 quarts of oil to keep the crankcase level safe. (I have extended sump and a full-flow filter so my total oil capacity is around 4.5 quarts.)

Reading multiple posts on here, I surmise that driving the Thruway at 65 was enough to fill the 3/4 valve cover up with oil and then overfill the breather box... I have hydraulic lifters, not sure if that would be adding more oil in the valve covers. Then I guess the oil mist escaping the breather box just gets thrown everywhere by the tornado of airflow in the engine compartment?

I've cleaned the mess up, and my thought is to troubleshoot initially by just clamping the hose shut from the 3/4 valve cover and see if that eliminates the spray. I am not currently at home so I'm looking for a simple, temporary solution until after the holiday when I can drive home and put something permanent in place.

My oil filler neck has the oil breather/return hose fitting on the BOTTOM of the filler, so that there is a bend in the hose that forms a trap like you'd find in your sink drain. Is this correct or should the nipple be in the top of the filler neck for oil to return unrestricted to the crankcase?

The other thing I am reading is that the shaft at the timing pulley is not sealed. On my engine, at 65 mph with the oil temp reading 230 degrees, I have about 40 psi oil pressure on the gauge. Is that too high? During the summer I run Royal Purple HPS 20W-50.

Thanks,
Andy

P.S. I know a few pictures would hep, but I cannot post them from here. Sorry.

[Tcash]

[Onefundave]

It could be that the alternator stand is lose. This happened to me and I noticed that oil had somehow gotten significantly higher than where the leak was coming from. But since I have tightened down the stand I haven't seen it anymore.
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1970 tin top camper

[mikedjames]

My bus used to do this kind of thing regularly - despite a stock breather system, it would even empty the crank case through the dipstick hole if I left the dipstick out. And it would throw oil off the stock crank pulley as well.


The cure was new pistons and cylinders . The blowby from worn out rings and cylinders was enough to overcome the breather system when running hot and at sustained 65mph freeway speeds in a bus.

The problem with something like the Bugpak system is that all of the leaking gases still have to go through a single pipe to reach the atmosphere, so if blowby happens badly the more complicated system just provides more paths to directly blow oil from the cylinder heads....
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Ancient vehicles and vessels

1974 VW T2 : Devon Eurovette camper with 1641 DP T1 engine, Progressive carb, full flow oil cooler, EDIS crank timed ignition.
Engine 1: 40k miles (rocker shaft clip fell off), Engine 2: 30k miles (rebuild, dropped valve). Engine 3: a JK Preservation Parts "new" engine, aluminium case: 26k miles: new top end.
Gearbox rebuild 2021 by Bears.

1979 Westerly GK24 24 foot racer/cruiser yacht Forethought of Gosport.
1973 wooden Pacer sailing dinghy

[Andy70Bus]

Hey all, thanks for the replies.

I pray that I don't need piston/ring work since this is new build with less than 2100 miles on it. It is a 1915cc with oversized valves, hydraulic lifters, progressive carb, etc. Built by Adrian Audirac and company at Headflow Masters in CA. I guess I need to get a leakdown test done to verify that I don't have a seating problem with new rings?

This issue WAS really minor, until I switched to this breather box I just wanted to get rid of the annoyance and make sure I was not fouling plugs early by feeding oil blowby to the carb directly.

On the plus side, I just figured my fuel burn for my 300 mile drive - about half of it on the highway at 60+ and about half through the Adirondack Mountains with hills to climb and twists and turns - I got 19.9 mpg overall. That seems pretty good.

Thanks,
Andy

[busdaddy]

Here's an interesting read on valve cover vents, breather boxes and oil so thick it opens the bypass valve: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=566237
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[Andy70Bus]

Hi busdaddy, that thread you linked is the one that leads me to plan to try just clamping the breather hose between 3/4 and the breather box to try and stop the mess. If it works, then I know where all the oil is coming out. I'm a little concerned that my return line to the filler neck having the p-trap effect might cause the problem to persist no matter what I do, though.

Thanks,
Andy

[busdaddy]

Yeah, that return line could be an issue, can you replace the straight fitting with a 90 degree elbow to point the hose more upwardsy? If your filler is the one I'm thinking it is with the plastic screw on cap the fittings are NPT, Home depot or any hardware store will have an elbow.
And yes, I'd try pinching the 3/4 cover line as well, not saying it's your problem but others have had issues, worth a try.
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Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Please don't PM technical questions, ask your problem in public so everyone can play along. If you think it's too stupid post it here
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[Andy70Bus]

I got the bus out for a run today with the 3/4 breather hose clamped. I brought it up to temp slowly at 55 mph or slower and some good hills. Checking repeatedly, I saw no oil leakage at all up to that point.

I then opened it up to 65-70 for 3-4 miles and checked again: there was no oil up around the breather but there was oil pooled around the base of the fuel pump ...

I found that I was able to put about a half turn on the 2 aircraft nuts holding my fuel pump down before they felt nicely snug. I cleaned up the oil again and took it for another run: much less oil but there is still oil seeping out under the nut closest to the rear.

Does it make sense that there would be a significant oil leak like this from the fuel pump base? Being at the top of the case I would not have expected oil to be there under pressure, especially for it to still sleep out even after torquing the nut pretty tight.

Thanks,
Andy

[SGKent]

can the oil from the breather box return to the engine?

From what I have read, the valve cover breathers can create a situation where the blowby holds oil in the valve covers. Good reading on this issue:

http://www.hamincgroup.com/type4-test.php
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[Andy70Bus]

Hi folks,

Sorry I did not follow this up sooner, I "had" to go camping in the mountains for a few weeks so couldn't work on the bus

I went back to solid valve covers and re-oriented my oil filler cap breather so that it is slightly above horizontal, i.e. it's all downhill for the oil to run back to the engine.

I left the breather box in place. I ran the oil filler breather hose to it as normal, and the port that used to go to the 3/4 valve cover now goes to the air cleaner. The third port that used to go to 1/2 valve cover is just blocked off.

This way I have the box to collect any oil mist that makes it that high, open to the atmosphere for pressure release, and a slight draw on it from the air cleaner to clear any fumes but not drag oil into the carburetor (the vent line from the breather box goes uphill before getting to the air cleaner, so oil is not going to flow that way with the breather box acting as a vacuum breaker).

I made an initial test run and got the bus up to operating temps at 65+ mph for about 20 minutes - so far, TEST SATISFACTORY Phew.

I still need to go for a longer test run and see if the apparent leak at the fuel pump spacer returns, or if that was really oil from the breather system.

Thanks again for all of your inputs and advice!!!

- Andy