hello, my maverick buddy bob has a 71 2dr. maverick with a 200 six. he gets oil all over the drivers side of the motor. i watched and saw no oil leak. when he goes about 20 miles and comes home the motor has oil on the wires,dip stick handle etc. i am thinking a oil drain problem. i had a 1971 ltd with a 351 v8 and the drain holes would block up and when i took off the valve covers all the oil came out all over the place. also the lifters make a lot of noise. on my 72 250 the oil goes around the pushrods like a barber pole. i will be putting a new valve gasket on for him. what should i look for when i start the motor with the cover off, and is there any way to quiet the lifters. thanks joe
joe, lifter noise i think comes from "oil starvation". that could be bad oil pump or stopped up oil screen. do pull the valve cover an see if the oil is returning to the bottom end. on that 200 there is a rocker arm shaft that could be worn. when you get the valve cover off...pull the bolts out of the top of the shaft and slide the rockers to the side and look for wear. when you replace the shaft just tighten the bolts to specs, they are "self adjusting". good luck...frank...
There are other reasons for oil leaks. It can be as simple as a bad valve cover gasket. Also, you can get leaks on the sixes from the head gasket not sealing corectly anymore. I've seen that and on the driver's side. If you had oil pumping out the dipstick, I would imagine that you'd see it dislodged somewhat from the pressure that it'd take to move oil out of there. That would be a sign of a pretty serious internal problem. Lifter noise, yes, can be caused by oil starvation. It can also be caused by normal wear on the lifters or a mechanical problem developing with them from damage or excessive wear. Inline sixes were famous for developing valve ticks with nothing major being wrong with them. My father owned nothing but inline sixes, with the exception of his '73 Torino 302, and they all developed ticks after time and miles even though he took meticulous care of them.
I had the same problem on my 250 and replaced several of the original "cork" gaskets. I never could get it to stop leaking and the 4th time around I replaced the entire valve cover and put a rubber gasket on with some red RTV on either side of it. 3,000 miles later it still hasn't leaked a drop.
another thought is it could be "blow by". if the pcv valve is stopped up it will build pressure in the crank case and force oil out the gaskets...frank...
I had a problem end of last year/beginning of this year...under the hood on the drivers side valve cover, plug wires, header, bottom side of hood etc. kept on getting covered with oil, I re-did the oil pressure sending deal, checked the valve cover gasket, replaced the fuel pump gasket, basically everything I could think of. As it turns out, there is a seal or something related to the diaphram inside of the fuel pump, that loosens up from the casting and oil gets on top of it, the pressure from the diaphram doing its job causes it to come out of the two holes on the top of the pump. It is an Edelbrock Performer fuel pump. May be an irrelevant story but I never seen that type of thing before.
thanks guys, i will be checking out bobs 200 this week. if i find something i will post it. thank you joe
Yea . I was going to say if the PCV , got pinched , pluged, I've seen them push the dip stick up an allow to blow outta it ,, Also isnt there on the 6 cyl that tappet access cover Driverside of the motor , I've seen those leak something pitful on the bigger 6'er, An on your valve cover , from folks cranking an cranking down the valve cover bolts , I think torque is like 12 lbs max. The lil hole the bolt goes in gets dished out , When you take the valve cover off, turn it up-side down,Find a socket the correct size in dia. Set it over the hole , An take the back side of your ball peen hammer ( the lil knob end ) An tap the hole back in just a bit , that way when you go to tighten it down it can squish the gaskit .
