Cold start oil leak

[asonofabeach69]

Well Ive had my cutlass convertible on the road for about a week now, and up till the other day the weather was mild, it has gotten real cold the last few days. It seems well at least to me that my car has developed a cold start oil leak. After a few minutes of running and warming up it stops leaking. When it is leaking it is coming from the rear of the engine. I put some stop leak in there to hopefully make it leak less. Is this a common problem?

[Supreme Cutlass]

Which engine are we talking about? rear engine automatically sounds like the dist. o ring.

[DOHCRagtopguy]

Sounds like the dreaded oil pump drive seal 'o' ring leak. Where the distributor used to be on the old blocks. Look under the throttle intake when it's cold and first fired up. A little tough to see, but there's a clamp there that holds the oil pump drive down. The 'o' ring is inside and to fix it properly you have to pull the rear head off, pull the shaft out and replace the 25 cent 'o' ring. A real pain in the ass.

 

On my wife former 3.4 Lumina I notched a edge of the dummy shaft so I could pull it up enough to slip a Chevy distributor gasket underneath with a shit load of hi-temp silicone slathered all around underneath after cleaning the area thoroughly with Brakleen. Clamped it back down, allowed it to cure for 24 hours and it never leaked again.

 

I've gotta do my Olds in the Spring, it has the exact same problem. Once it warms up it only leaks a little bit because everything expands.

 

Good luck.

[asonofabeach69]

Which engine are we talking about? rear engine automatically sounds like the dist. o ring.

 

3.4L LQ1 V6 engine, its definitely only a leak when the engine is cold, when the engine is warm its not leaking at all.