97 12 Valve Oil Leak
 

My truck is leaking oil on the passenger side/rear. It is quite wet up to the head gasket joint. Really wet in front of bell housing like its flicking oil out (auto). Pulled inspection cover and it is not wet in side on the TC or ring gear. If the rear main was leaking could it be flinging oil out the front of the fly wheel while remaining dry behing it. Now the odd part. The head stud that comes up behind the number 5 exhaust port is oily like oil is coming up the stud. It seems to be oil and not from an injector. Of course there is a lot of heat on the head there and the oil drys up some what. That is the only wet spot on the head. The fluids are not mixing. The truck has the normal hot rod stuff done to it. Delivery valves, fuel plate, AFR mod, governer springs, injectors, HX 40. It also runs water meth. It pulls 40 psi boost at about 2500 rpm. It might hit 45 psi for a split second under full throttle spool up. No waste gate as it spools slow. It had a brand new head with studs about a year ago. Any sugestions. I will try and wash her up good and reinspect for leaks. Its drivable I just dont like the 6 inch diamter oil spots when I park it.

More than likely a leaking #6 valve cover gasket.

Covers are bone dry.

I blew my head gasket using my water injection at those kind of boost levels, when removing the head bolts between #5&#6 there was water&oil, not coolant in the holes when pulling the bolts. I couldn't see where the oil was coming from on mine.You may want to check that stud out just to be sure.

Ok Some fun with raingear and the pressure washer and shes all clean. Fired her up and took her for a rip and its bubbling oil out of the head gasket between 5 and 6 on the exhaust manifold side, Explain please, How does oil leak here unless somthing is cracked,

Why don't you take it apart and find out? if it's leaking it needs to be fixed.

Upon closer examination I think its wet stacking number five and dumping at the manifold joint and running down to the head on the back side of the manifold. Its been a bit smoky on start up a few time recently. I have cheap 370 injectors in there now. I think I'll throw some 90 horse injectors in and see what happens.

When my head gasket went you could see after the tear down that a chunk of gasket had blown out near the oil passage. So that's how I had so much oil running down the side of the block.

Installed the dynamite diesel stage 3 stingers and what a difference. Smooth smoke free starting. Better idle. Rolls coal still. Just put them in so I'll play with the AFR a bit. I will keep thread up to date as to wether my oil was a leak or wet stack situation. Thinking about it every time I had an issue starting it the truck had been idled for a while before being shut dow. Once was charging a friends dead truck for about half an hour and the next day it was below freezing and I did not think she was going to go. When it did mjor white smoke show. Thinking about the mismach on the 370 injectors to the piston combined with the idling the wet stack makes sense. The injectors were really sloppy when I removed them.

Definately leaking. the puddle is about 2 feet in diameter now.

Pulled head and the gasket is pooped. Little bit of compression leakage. Pistons are sure clean with the better injectors. Stiil seams imposible to me that oil could get out the passenger side without coolant or oil issues. Oh well shes purring again. Any Ideas as to why the gasket blew in short order. I'm suspecting the water meth. I forgot to mention that the timming was advanced a bit as well wich water meth apparently does not like. I have an AEM kit and was running 2 of the 550 cc tips. I swapped to one 550cc and one 315cc tips. I might pull it back to just the one tip. I did not notice a huge improvement with the water injection as far as power or egt's. It cleans the burn abit. I run the injection all the time and have it set to come in at 10 psi of boost. You go throuh the stuff pretty quick when towing. I'm hoping the new injectors will lower my egt's a bit.

What's wet stacking mean?

Ussualy happens when running under minimal load and unburnt fuel accumulates in the cylinders. Oily puke then is discharged out the exaust giving the term wet stacking due to the visible diesel tar at exaust joints. It can accumulate causing big trouble as well as washing the bores out. Generators running under minnimal load have such issues as well as work site trucks that idle all day. Lots of low milers out of northern Alberta that are idle f_ _ _ ed. If an injector goes bad this same situation can happen.

Aaaahhh gotchya. Previously I only knew that as "slobbering" lol Thanks for the info.

Detroits would slobber oil past the rings with the same result when worn out. Or new LOL

I never ran my water injection that low of boost, my first stage would kick in at 17 pounds and stage 2 at 28pounds.Any low than that and It would kill the fire and the boost pressure would drop off.

Thats the highest setting on my controller. What sort of volume are you injecting

I would have to look at the # on the nozzles I took out. When I was towing a trailer and the min. boost was 17 lbs. all day long it ratio's out to 30 gal. of fuel, to 5 gal. of water. But I live in very mountianest country also.

I would estimate my usage at double that with the 550 cc nozzles. I would go through 5 gallons in about 250 miles. Verry steep hills around here though.

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