Oil in Breather Pipe

[gsable]

I am getting a lot of oil in my rear air cleaner.
Rockers are fine - no squirting.
I disconnected the vertical breather pipe coming from the rear tappet cover from the t-connection on the top of the valve cover. When the engine is hot,oil squirts intermittinely from the verical breather pipe and I hear a lot of gurgling, especially when I turn the engine off.
Is this normal?
Gary Sable

 

[anthony7777]

gsable, how many years/miles on that engine?

 

[gsable]

The car has 39,000 miles on it and I do not believe the engine has been rebuilt. It is butning some oil and I am considering doing a rebuild next year.

 

[bob hughes]

Gary

I am burning oil at the rate of 1 litre per 120 miles on thye back 3 cylinders mainly and I don't have any gurgling. I have dropped the end of the breather pipe into a can held under the wing as I have rams on the carbs.

Bob

 

[Dave Russell]

I am getting a lot of oil in my rear air cleaner.
Rockers are fine - no squirting.
I disconnected the vertical breather pipe coming from the rear tappet cover from the t-connection on the top of the valve cover. When the engine is hot,oil squirts intermittinely from the verical breather pipe and I hear a lot of gurgling, especially when I turn the engine off.
Is this normal?
Gary Sable

"A lot of oil in the rear air cleaner" & "When the engine is hot,oil squirts intermittinely from the verical breather pipe" are not consistent with "Rockers are fine - no squirting."

I think either the rockers ARE worn, or the oil line connection to the rocker shaft is leaking. Be very careful with the oil line banjo connection to the rockers, it is very easily stripped in the soft aluminum. Correct alignment of this banjo to shaft connection is another subject, but is very critical. It must be done BEFORE the rocker stands are tightened down to the head.

Fully warm the engine & remove the rocker cover. Run the engine to see where the oil is coming from. Excess oil IS coming from "somewhere".
D

 

[anthony7777]

gable, we are talking here of an austin healey with 39000 original miles? hum, what dave is telling you to do is a good and easy start to tracing down this problen, what is your oil pressure guage reading while cold/hot? - a rocker ass. rebuild is about $300-$350. oil seals perhaps?

 

[zblu]

From memory a pint/500 miles was not abnormal useage

 

[gsable]

I have run the car hot without the valve cover and there was no squirting from the rockers; just peeing like they're supposed to. The oil is definitely coming from the rear tappet cover and up the breather pipe, but I don't know why.

I did put a cast aluiminum oil pan in recently and shortened the pick up tube by 1/4". Any chance the new pan is contibuting to the problem?

 

[gsable]

Anthony,
Oil pressure is 50-60 when cold and 20-25 when hot.
I suspect oil seals also, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.
Gary

 

[anthony7777]

isabel, i asked about your oil press. since i had a similar situation with my engine and began loosing oil press, i tested my oil pump and it checked out,as a result im expecting to do a dyno run on my rebuilt engine within the next week or so, and yes oil seals had to be replaced.