rear main oil leek advice

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cudaman51

cudaman51

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after three days in heaven at the mopar nationals and 500 round trip miles. I used two quarts of oil on a 6000 mile 340. it looks like its running out the torque converter inspection plate. My guess is rear main oil seal.What would cause that. It doesn't sound good to me. Any opinions on what to look for would be appreciated.
 
I know its going to be hard but make sure its not coming from the rear of the intake or the soft plug at the end of the camshaft, or, less likely, one of the oil gallery plugs. 6k on an engine isn't much and for the rear main to suddenly begin leaking that much doesn't sound logical. I'd look at other areas before I condemn the seal.
 
thanks lhearold that makes sense. I was thinking the only way for it to be the seal was the bearing to go first.
 
I would make sure your PCV valve is working properly first and check the back of the engine for leaks first as suggested before getting into more serious tear down. After that, excessive blowby could be a cause as well as a plain worn out seal.
 
I have seen seal failures that were "immediate" where a piece of metal shaving got into the seal and ripped it but only once in my 63 years. Usually when a rear seal goes it does so gradually as the material wears out or is compacted by crankshaft wobble due to a bad rear main bearing. For a motor to be running well and then relatively suddenly develop a serious rear main leak leads me to believe that the oils is coming from somewhere else on the back of the engine. I have seen leaks from the soft plug at the end of the cam and a case or two where the builder did not tighten the plugs in the ends of the oil passages. One was bad enough where the plug actually came out and did serious damage to the rear of the block. See if you can borrow one of those cameras that you can stick up along the back of the block and see if there is oil up higher.

Larry
 
well just call me bone head. I jacked it up and crawled under it and found the path from the valve cover above the starter. it was hardly visible from above. (loose bolt). I guess its to easy for me to think of bad things.Needles to say i'm very happy that's all it was. Thanks for the replies and happy moparing
 
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