200- oil drip/ pressure?

[angier6stang]

after driving or idling for a while I have an oil drip that comes down the front of the flex plate. I have tightened the oil pan screws (easily), did not notice any oil coming from the oil pan gasket- they just felt a little loose when I put a socket on them. does this sound like rear main seal? it will leave an oil spot a little bigger than a 50cent piece. after cleaning everything underneath and driving again noticed it does blow down the underneath. I checked over the rest of the engine and do not see any signs of oil leaks.
I have installed mechanical gauges and my oil pressure at idle is reading 15# and when on the road or anything above idle it reads 45#. what is normal pressure for this thing?
the engine was rebuilt a few(3) years ago and I'm just now getting around to it.
should I have put some sealer on the bolts when I installed the pressure plate?

200
30 over
ported heads with new valves and hardened seats
YT rockers
264 110 cam by Isky
DUI (needs to be tuned yet)
toploader 4 speed
stock rear

 

[bubba22349]

That would be fairly good oil pressure, the most likely cause of your oil spot is going to be the rear seal, but the flywheel bolts going into the crankshaft could be seeping a little also if you do not use sealer, the pressure plate bolts though would not cause any oil leaks. Good luck

 

[angier6stang]

after thinking about the pressure plate bolts a little bit more, I had to slap myself on the back of the head.... :rolflmao: . the flywheel bolts need sealer? i'll be doing short around town stuff until winter and tear it out when she's put up in the garage. also going to be sending the disappointing DUI to South Carolina so it can get the curve it should have had. checking my plugs, they were anywhere from clean/light gray to OMG what is that build-up? cleaned the plugs and re-gapped at .045 now and she is acting better.
thanks for the reply

 

[bubba22349]

I wouldn't worry about the flywheel bolts too much unless your going to pull it down for other work, any seepage would very minor. Most often it's the rear main seal that causes that kind of trouble, depending on type of seal rope or neoprene and how it was installed. Good luck

 

[Varilux]

Since you mentioned having recently installed gauges, one place to check might be the oil pressure sensor. I used to have a "mystery leak" that would leave little drips under the oil pan. The oil seemed to be coming from the pan, but everything was snug. Finally figured out I had a small leak at the pressure sensor (wasn't obvious, but a thin stream of oil would come down from the sender and travel back to the oil pan). A little teflon tape solved the problem.

Things are rarely that simple, but every once in a while...

Your pressure is opposite of mine... I get 50 lb when I initially start up, then once its hot it drops to 30 lb. (unless I'm really on it- then it will come up a little).