After about 300 miles my 96 I6 300 is using a little more than a quart. I have 1000 miles (5 months) on an oil change (so I will change it ASAP). This past few months i have done mostly in town driving(never above 65). Nothing seems to sound bad, and it never misses out. I used Penzoil 10w30 and a Fram filter last time. It has a very fast idle for about a minute and then seems to slow down (maybe i should slow it down with the set screw?). There is oil all over the distributor cap, could it be leaking? Could i have something wrong in the engine?

 

Hey ccmac, everything you described is basically normal for the 300, except the oil leak. Check your tappet covers, they are 2 rectangular plates just below the valve cover. If they are leaking, oil can spray just about everywhere. Mine are, and it is. Not a bad fix, but it will require a little time. Good luck, let us know if that was it. Peace, Dave.

 

So i guess i should just live with adding oil every few weeks? The tappet cover and gasket is fine, i wondered if it could be coming from inside the engine up through the distributor. A friend of mine that recently graduated from UTI in Phoenix, Arizona said that here recently penzoil has been doing bably in their test vehicles so i dicided to switch to Castrol GTX.

 

The distributor bearings have seals to stop oil from coming up, and it sounds like yours might be bad. Is the oil INSIDE the cap, or just outside? There's a lot of air blowing around that side of the engine, so it could be lifting the oil from the pressure switch (which is known to leak), the pan gasket (another known common leak source), or just about anywhere else on that side, the top, front, or even back of the engine.

Get a couple of cans of Gunk Engine Brite, read their instructions, and clean the engine thoroughly. Top up the oil & then start checking for the source of the leak every time you drive it. Keep a flashlight & inspection mirror in the truck so you can find it before it gets sprayed around again.

 

Today i went down to orrielys and bougt some accel wires and some autolite plugs. As soon as i got off work i pulled in the garage and got to work, got to the last plug and found that the threads were barely caught! Good thing i got the wild hair the change em' or my hood would have a nice conversation piece! Hopefully that was the source of all the oil loss. Also I discovered a green plastic tube broke ( probably something to do with smog? ), it comes off of a circular metal looking thing on the back of the intake manifold. I taped it back togather for the time being.

 

ive been having trouble with mine leaking too, i replaced the o-ring on the distributer gasket for the panel on the side of the engine, and it still leak, but it sounds like what you are taking about the oil is all over the side of the engine, so i wouldnt think it was the pan

 

No, spark plugs don't hold oil in.Green is always the EGR, and you should use a slightly larger piece of rubber vacuum hose slipped over the broken ends to splice it back together. Or just replace the whole run with rubber vacuum hose.