So here's the story.

A couple weeks ago I got my car started, pulled it out of the barn where it was stored for the winter - hadn't started it in about 10 months, and got it washed, reset the timing, tuned the carb, it sounded great and ran great, was a little hard to start even after it warmed up. The next day I went out to start it because I was going change the oil and take it for its yearly inspection, it was so hard to start - took me over two hours and a whole can of starting fluid before it would run on its own for longer than 5 seconds. Now it runs terrible, lots of vibration and very irregular idle. It stalls if I let it run for a few minutes and the longer I run it, the harder it becomes to start again.

There is also an oil leak from the front passenger side of the engine in between the fuel pump and the timing cover. But it's not the fuel pump or the timing cover, not from the heads or valve cover, or the water pump, and the harmonic balancer is dry inside and out so it isn't leaking from there and being deflected back. It looks like it is coming from one of the two bolt holes near the timing cover that aren't used by anything. My question is, what are those bolt holes for and why would it be leaking from them? Engine is a 383.

 

Can't help you with the starting issue, but the hole you marked needs to have a "short" bolt (1/2" or less?) and washer installed into it.

That hole is drilled into the fuel pump pushrod hole and will leak oil if not sealed with a bolt.

If you install a bolt that is too long, the bolt will drag on the pushrod or lock the pushrod in place.

The hole is used with a long bolt to keep the pushrod in place while the fuel pump is removed.

 

That's good. I was afraid the block was cracked or something, I don't think that has ever leaked before but then again it is only really noticeable at higher RPMs so probably wouldn't have noticed it idling in the driveway. Thanks.

I'm probably going to have to tear apart the engine to find out why it's running so bad. It's not the carb, I took that apart and checked everything. I hope it's not a valve or camshaft issue.