A Slippery Situation, or Smoke and Mirrors

I don’t know why, but I enjoy titling posts like novels from 1900. It’s slippery because it involves oil, and there was also smoke visible in the car’s mirrors!

When I took the Chevelle into its short term storage (for garage renovations) it was the first long drive it went on, and I noticed that it smoked at hot idle. Before bringing it back, I checked my primary suspicion and did indeed find oil inside the vacuum line to the PCV.

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Below the calipers is the old PCV adapter, sitting next to the PCV valve and its grommet. Above the calipers is a metal disc, which is the body of the baffle to be installed.
Below the calipers is the old PCV adapter, sitting next to the PCV valve and its grommet. Above the calipers is a metal disc, which is the body of the baffle to be installed.

As a refresher, the PCV is more or less a metered vacuum leak which pulls fumes out of the engine (there is a breather on the other side to let in fresh air) for an array of benefits, including making the oil last longer and decreasing crankcase condensation. I had installed mine on a neat adapter I found, which screws into the fill plug on the valve cover and thus serves double-duty.

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Unfortunately, this placed it directly over a rocker arm, which means at high engine speeds there is literally a jet of oil onto the bottom of the adapter, which after a short while would fill with oil and lead to A Lot going through the PCV and into the intake.

The fill port has no provision to install a baffle (why would it) so this means I had to actually put it where you’re meant to, in the front of the valve cover (which I was able to install a baffle inside of to prevent oil from spraying into the PCV valve; sorry, no pictures).

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A small length of 3/8" aluminum fuel line made for a nice turn from the PCV valve to the vacuum line
A small length of 3/8" aluminum fuel line made for a nice turn from the PCV valve to the vacuum line

A bit of rerouting lines later, I don’t think it turned out too bad. Not as pretty as before, but at least it shouldn’t be ingesting vast quantities of oil in high-vacuum (idle & decel) scenarios.

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As a fun fact to close things out, when I took the PCV and its hose off, there was several mL of oil that came running out of the hose. It was sucking up a lot of oil.