Wow, did I ever have an oil leak from hell... The lifter cover plate gasket sagged out on me, and absolutely soaked the entire underside of my truck, so I spent an hour pressure washing it, idled it, and not a drop came out unless you were driving (which meant another hour of washing after. so $22 bucks and 10 hours later, I had the injector pump removed and everything fixed up, and while I was under there... I found another leak.. The KDP cracked the casing by the crank, so I patched it up with windshield urethane (the stickiest stuff on the face of the planet), and laid some stainless steel mesh into it to give it some extra strength... Drove 200 miles today and those two leaks are fixed, but I still have some very minor ones to take care of.

One note I will say... the stock crankcase vent is poorly designed... Not necessarily undersized though... Before I fixed my lifter cover leak, I took a crankcase pressure reading at full boost/RPM, and found that I was getting about 1 to 1.5 PSI crankcase pressure, so when I had the cover off, I cleaned out all the screens, then cut the little tab that holds them on so I could pry them out partly to find another baffle... Since the breather tube protrudes into the cover by a 1/4", and this baffle was barely above it, it's no surprise I was building crankcase pressure. I cut that plate out. I measured the crankcase pressure again and couldn't get a reading at full throttle... I think that will fix a lot of problems with oil leaks.... though perhaps I'll loose a tiny bit of oil out of the breather tube (better there than elsewhere), like out of the dipstick.

when I did the head gasket in December, we had a heck of a time repriming the pump, as the primer button didn't work, so i decided that while everything was so nicely accessible, to take a look at it... I found that the checkvalve on the outlet was pooched.. the rubber disc in it had completely hardened and cracked to bits (Carter garbage!), I managed to patch it together again with a piece of inner tube and a pop rivet, and my primer button works again... Also, I cleaned out a fair bit of gunk from the screen below the fuel heater... probably hadn't been done in 200,000 miles. A long time ago my return line blew up as it went behind the fuel filter, and it took me 3 hours to fix, since it was such a misery to access, so I decided I'd make sure that didn't happen again, and I removed the lines from the top of the tranny, and ran them along the frame so they come up by the starter, and I bent down the return line of the inj. pump so I could see it and reach it to put a hose clamp on it... it's MUCH nicer to work on now


So, If anyone ever has to remove their injector pump for any reason, I STRONGLY recommend changing the lifter cover gasket as a matter of course, and fixing that baffle.

 

 

Well, it seems like it was all a useless exercise... I had a 200 mile trip and it developed a rattle along the way, and suddenly has a LOT of blowby, and it's from one cylinder, checked the valves, one exhaust valve was quite loose, but I think I have a cracked ring or something in that line... hoping I make it home, but who knows.. it's not sounding good...
it's just never seems to end with this thing...
On the bright side, I have a spare engine that just needs a gasket and seal kit

 

funny thing, I just put my new rebuilt engine in, and blew that same gasket out not even 200 miles into my break in. I was able to push it back in with my fingers, I can only guess that it blew out from excessive blowby being a new motor.

 

Well, I made it home, and that gasket blew out on me again 50 miles into the trip, and I was also able to stuff it back in with my fingers... I did the rest of the trip with the oil filler cap removed and a washer fluid jug over it to reduce the splash... worked ok...
The engine is a real hurtin unit now, starting it up in the morning is actually easier than when it's warm, but it's only running on 5 cylinders. The smell in the cab from the blowby is enough to make a guy puke, and there's just a cloud of smoke coming from the stink tube.
I have a spare engine I'm putting in now, I just picked up a full gasket and seal kit for it, I'm going to be using my old injector pump.

As for that cover gasket, This time I'm going to curl over the sealing lip a little bit so it holds it in place better, I'm not going to take that injector pump off again for THAT... and it makes far too much of a mess... I might even make a support out of sheet metal to hold it up.

I'll let you all know what I find when the old one comes apart... so far I have the pan off and things look OK there from what I can tell

 

New engine in, purrs like a kitten and growls like a tiger..

Old engine had a head gasket leak from a defective head gasket (must have been) just on the front side of #3 cylinder, it got oil into it, boosted the EGT's way up, and scored the hell out of the cylinder wall... it would need at least a .020" overbore to clean up, so it's a boat anchor for now.. might still have some good stuff... the head is fine which is nice