today i was driving my car and oil started coming out of the dipstick tube. my guess was that there 5 quarts of oil in it. 4 qts in the pan and 1 in the filter, right? is that correct? what else can cause this?

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1975 Dart Swinger 225 2bbl

Check your crankcase breather and PCV valve. Both on the valve cover, BTW. Chances are they are plugged up and the blowby gasses in the crankcase are being forced out the disptick tube. The dipstick tube doesn't extend down into the oil so you shouldn't have lost too much oil.

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Joshua

all i have is a mr. gasket breather which i can see 'ventalation' coming out f and no pcv valve

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1975 Dart Swinger 225 2bbl

The "ventilation" is blow-by. Blow-by only gets worse as manifold pressure increases. What you see at idle will be much worse under heavy throttle and is probably overwhelming that breather.

OK, here is where I tear your car apart. Don't take this personally.

1. Your air cleaner is way too small. Bad for power and if it's restrictive enough also bad for economy. Stock air cleaners are better.

2. That valve cover has no baffles and will put a lot of oil into that breather. You need a PCV valve to provide proper crankcase ventilation, but if you put on on that crappy valve cover it will suck oil. Put a stock valve cover, PCV valve and breather on the engine.

3. Get rid of the glass fuel "filter" before it cracks and burns down the car. It's also a very poor filter. It's just a little plastic screen. Go get a metal body Wix fuel filter.

Also see if you can find a proper dipstick for your engine.

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Joshua

I agree with Josh that a PCV is a great idea. You can get grommets that will fit that valve cover for a push-in PCV.

You can also get "baffled grommets" at an Advance or other parts store with a performance section. The baffled grommet goes under the breather and deflects splashing oil from getting pushed into the breather.

I also agree on the glass filter replacement with a safer and better filtering metal bodied one.

I disagree on the air cleaner. If it is not old/plugged, you shouldn't have any breathing problems with it. I have a smaller one than that on my 68 Dart with EFI and it makes no difference to pull it off at the track or on the hwy. I get 26MPG with that car at 70-75MPH cruising speed. I will say you'll have to keep an eye on it and replace it when it gets plugged, maybe every 10-20k miles.

For the disptick, you can temporarily wrap some teflon tape around the flange where it fits into the tube to seal it.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

The small open element air filter has a lot more surface area than the carburetor requires, and is not a restriction. I used a slightly larger one for years on my 225 BBS. As Lou said, it might get dirty quicker, but until then it's not likely to hurt anything.

Besides, how can you beat that "Whooooosh" sound when you get on it? That has to be worth 10-15 IHP (Internet Horsepower)!

I'm using an air filter element for a 351 Ford, in a home-made housing. Not for performance or looks - I happened to have some laying around for a couple of Fomocos I owned at the time, and used one for a pattern. Standardization! Reduced inventory requirements! Of course, I no longer own anything else that uses that size filter.

When the BBD goes on, it will get a regular housing with cold air.

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"When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it." - Pointy-haired Boss

1964 Valiant V200, 225/Pushbutton 904
BBD, CAI, HEI, LBP, AC, AM/FM/USB, EIEIO

At the very least you should get an air cleaner that has a fitting to hook a hose up to the nipple on that crankcase breather. I think I saw one pointed towards the driver's side fender.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

That all depends on your crank case breather. Stock application for my '82 ram was a breather that had an internal filter and a fitting that then went up to the air cleaner. There was no filtration on the air cleaner, however, just a tube that sucked unfiltered air from the "dirty" side of the filter. I don't see how that gives any advantage. Currently, I'm running a self contained crank case breather that doesn't even have a connector to go up to the air cleaner, and have yet to see any negative effects.

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Used to own:
'82 Dodge D150
Erson 270 Cam, O/S valves, mild port work, ~9.5:1 compression

Currently fighting with an '85 VW Cabriolet

My other passion

With your description it seems that you where not having any troublle then all off a sudden this started happening. Just wandering, by the pic you posted this looks like a fairly new engine.

PCV system can deffently play a big part in it doing this & if it continous I would try to get a system on it to see if it take care of the problem. But if it is doing this real bad & had not had trouble before I wander if you may have some engine trouble starting to show itself. Has the engine changed in the way it runs? A piston or ring problem could bring this on if there was a problem.

But without a PCV system it is possible for it to do this with no engine problem and having a dipstick that is not proper for the engine could make it worse. Do you have a lot of breathing going on at the Valve cover breather? Have a friend put the car in drive & brake torque it to put more pressure on the engine & see if it increases alot on the amount of breathing(blow By) you see.



Jess

ok i think everythings back to normal now. today i dusted off the original valve cover, put a good breather on (by the way the breather was clogged with oil. good call josh.) along with a homemade breather; a clean piece of shop rag bunch into the breather hole. it sits on to of the baffle and works pretty well for wut it is. also changed the fuel filter to a metal one. not only did the oil stop spraying out of my dipstick tube, but 99% of my off idle flatspot is gone! i want to thank everyone for the very informative responses.
i plan on hooking up the pcv tomorrow. will that cause any preformance or mileage gains??

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1975 Dart Swinger 225 2bbl

That could go either way, depending on the jetting of the carb. You may need to ajust the idle mixture screw after & idle speed regaurdless of jetting. But if all things are equal & the mix is right it should help with milage & performance.


Jess

If nothing else, it will help to keep the engine and engine bay cleaner. The partial vacuum that it creates in the crankcase will also help to seel the rings better and reduce blowby and oil consumption. On top of all that it will help reduce the pollutants that your car emits and it has no adverse effect on performance or economy.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

YEP!! Gots to be careful when puttin' on the bling. Some of that $h17 is just that.
Later chrome valve covers are chinese fabricated, and don't have the internal baffles. The baffles keep oil from splashing off the rockers and getting sucked up into your PCV system. If you GOTTA have a chrome valve cover, have a stock painted one cleaned up and chromed locally. (Won't be cheap.)
Personally, I would go with a bit larger air cleaner, (6 inch) but yours isn't really hurting you at this time.
The guys are right about that glass fuel filter. (More bling), and does not make your car any safer. (I suspect that you DO want to keep the car for awhile.)

I also notice that you have your fuel supply line running around the front of the engine. (Factory install.) It's suggested you re-route that to run up and over your valve cover, further back. Many a slant has suffered from vapor lock because that fuel line right up front get exposed to quite a bit of heat, and can boil the fuel in the line. (Use steel line as much as you can.)

Roger

I had one of those little air cleaners on mine for a while but it clogged up on me every 3-4 months. I wanted an open element air cleaner so I took a dremmel to a super six air cleaner and lopped off everything outside of the air filter. Then I took some brake fluid and removed the paint then polished the steel. It actually looked really good.
If you aren't having vapor lock problems leave the fuel line alone. It is in front of the engine so cool air coming through the radiator will keep the fuel cool. If you are having vapor lock problems then go for it. My fuel line runs in front like ours and I haven't had any problems, headers and all.
I see you have a hose that is supposed to go to the PCV valve. Where do you have it going in that pic?

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in that picture i dont have it hooked up to anything but today i hooked up the pcv to the back port on my bbd carb and now you can barely tell the thing is running and the engine doesnt move at all. stock valve cover is definately trhe way to go i use the chrome one for a tool dish now.

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1975 Dart Swinger 225 2bbl