Oil leaking out of valve cover air filter hose
Asked by dsf001 Jun 14, 2012 at 02:31 AM about the 1993 Ford Escort 4 Dr LX-E Sedan
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
My 1995 Ford Escort is blowing a significant amount of oil through the hose that goes from the valve cover to the air filter. When I put a new air filter in, after driving the car the air filter gets soaked with oil. When I drove a few miles with no air filter in, a huge puddle of oil accumulated into the air filter housing. Also, when I take off the valve cover cap (the cap used to add oil) while the engine is running, a lot of oil spits out of the hole, which didn't happen before. What would cause this?
13 Answers
Tom answered 5 years ago
Your PCV valve is probably blocked not allowing your engine to vent properly pushing oil out of the valve cover hose. Replace it!
Tom answered 5 years ago
An example can be found here:, http://autorepair.about.com/library/faqs/bl629f.htm
Rabbit_4410 answered 5 years ago
If,none of the above,helps--Sad News..Your rings are worn,creating a blow-by situation,which means,it"s time,for an overhaul..Sorry...Have a compression leak-down test done on your engine...
Richard answered 5 years ago
I am leaning more towards the blow by. Your engine is getting old and tired and needs some help. You may be able to help this by adding an addative to your enginefor older cars to stop the engine wear. Usually the PCV Valve is at the end of the tube that goes into your ai cleaner. It should be replaced about every 35K miles or so, but this is not usually the problem with oil in the air filter housing. I am leaning more towards the rings.
MrBlueOval answered 5 years ago
I agree totally. Unfortunately you got what they call "Blow-by". This happens when engines get a lot of miles on them and/or weren't taken care of in the first place or were neglected, plus the Ford Escort was a "Throw-away" car to begin with. They went about 80,000 miles and the head gave out on just about all of them. If you made it past that, and redid the head, usually the engine would give out anyway at about 90,000 and you would end up with blow-by which is oil getting up past the piston rings and the vacuum from the engine pulls that oil up thru the crankcase ventilation and right into your air filter which is exactly what you have going on. You could mix some "Motor Honey" (that's what it's called) into your engine oil and disconnect the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) hose going into your air filter and just let it vent to the outside of the engine temporarily and I mean temporarily so it don't plug up your air filter until you get another vehicle to drive. Those cars aren't really worth rebuilding the engine on. If you walked thru a junkyard back in the late 90's and early 2000's, that's pretty much all you saw in the Ford section of the yard. Rows and rows of junked Ford Escorts. 80,000 miles and right to the boneyard. Go Find another different car and scrap that Escort, you'll be glad you did.. Kenny.
dsf001 answered 5 years ago
I should have mentioned before that a couple of months ago the head gasket blew, so I pulled out the head and got it resurfaced, and I also took out the pistons and changed the rings. So the rings are brand new. After reading these comments I checked the compression again (with the engine cold) and measured 145 psi in all 4 cylinders. With compression that good, I don't see how there could be much blow-by in this case. Also, I installed a brand new PCV valve just last week, but oil still shoots into the air filter housing every time I drive it. (I lose about 2 quarts of oil in a short drive through town. Smoke also comes out of the oil dipstick tube when the stick is out.) On this car, the PCV valve goes from the crankcase directly to the intake manifold. I can feel with my hand that the line going to the intake is getting plenty of vacuum. Aside from this leak, the car runs very smoothly and has good power, so I don't think the EGR valve is leaking into the crankcase. Are there any other valves or filters that may be blocking the ventilation of the crankcase? Or is there anything else that could be leaking pressure into the crankcase, even though the cylinder compression is good?
MrBlueOval answered 5 years ago
Well, with that added information, maybe the rings aren't seating properly. Check the compression when the engine is hot. The only other thing I can think of is possibly an oil passage is plugged up and it's not circulating correctly. Check your oil pressure when the engine is hot also. Maybe do an engine flush with some "Sea-Foam" in the crankcase,and then an oil change and see if that clears it up. Kenny. Kenny.
dsf001 answered 5 years ago
Thanks all for your responses. The new PCV valve that I had installed was defective. Who would have thought. I put in a good one and the oil leak stopped.
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