I've just noticed this recent cause it's been wet around here and I can see the oil in the water, but when I run my car I notice a small oil trail behind it or puddling when I idle. I am curious to know what it is, I've experienced a few drops in oil pressure associated with dips in RPM, yet the engine responds fine and when I gas it up there is no hesitation or anything. I'm thinking it's a leak around the distributor or an oil pan gasket but I haven't noticed any oil spraying or dripping around there. Anyone ever had similar problems? It's not a big deal cause it hasn't effected performance.. yet. I'd like to know what it is so I can fix it. COuld there be a damaged gasket elsewhere?

 

To find the oil leak, you'll simply have to clean up everything and look for the leak. No easy way out of this one..

 

I agree. Wipe everything down really good and then see if you can see where it's coming from. It could be several things. Most common is the oil pan. The drain plug in your oil pan could even be loose! If you hit your oil pan on something like a hump in the street or something, you could have caused a leak. You'd need a new oil pan then. The WORST thing it could be is the rear main seal. Pray to the car gods that you don't have a bad rear main seal. If I'm not mistaken, you have to pull the whole engine for that. Most likely, it's an oil pan gasket. I don't think your distributor would leak as much oil as you described. Look really hard at it. You could even just peek underneath you car and if the oil pan is really nasty with black drips on it and lots and lots of dirt, I'd bet it's the oil pan gasket. It's an easy fix. Matt

 

I'm gonna guess it's the oil pan gasket, right now there's about 3 inches of snow on the ground so I'll have to take a look when it clears up. we've been gettin hammered with storm after storm. I doubt it's the rear main seal, but if it is, I'll let it go until I get my crate motor, then I will pull the engine out and it'll stay out lol. Thanks for the help

 

I recommend spraying the underside with degreaser, rinsing it off making sure it's all dry under there. I had a leak once where I thought it was the oil pan. If I hadn't cleaned everything I would've never seen the oil coming from the dipstick/block mating surface. Easy fix.

 

well it could be the pan gasket or the rear main seal like i have, its comming out of the dust cover hole on my tranny, yeppie.