My Bugeye is leaking considerable amounts of oil, and the details have
me a little puzzled. The symptom is that the oil is coming out of the
tappet cover road tube. My initial thought is that the engine is
suffering from significant blow-by due to worn rings and is venting
the pressure through the tube, pushing out the oil. I've tested the
compression, which read within 5psi of 140psi in all four cylinders.
There doesn't seem to be significant amounts of vapor coming out of
the road tube, just the oil dripping out.
To give a little more history about the car, I recently put it back on
the road after it spent six years in my garage. I ran the engine
periodically over that time - I was working on various parts of the
suspension and body work, not the engine. During that time, I never
noticed serious oil consumption, although I never ran the engine
particularly long or hard.
Is there something else that could cause the kind of oil consumption I
describe? I'm not convinced that blow-by is the problem, as the
compression tests OK (I think) and I don't see a lot of pressure at
the road tube. What should I look for before and after I start taking
the engine apart?
- Ralph
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