today was a great day for my camaro. My dad and i installed the doors, trunk deck, and inner fenders on the rolling shell. slowly we have been doing as much as possible with out the sheet metal in the way. Any way, the car is mechanically sound so we decided to test out the clutch adjustment and see how she ran rowing through the gears. We jacked up the rear and placed it on jack stands and let her rip. It was great rowing through the gears and down shifting until the balancer started to sling oil all over the place. Turned off the car and noticed a small puddle under the motor. great, im thinking it is the oil filter (had issues with the pan gasket) turned out that is was the timing cover seal behind the balancer. I grabbed a screwdriver and nudged it back in to place. I did get to drive the car though, in reverse right back in to the garage. Looks like i have to tear down the front of the engine graemlins/sad.gif what could have caused this seal to pop out? we have ran this motor quite a bit letting it idle and revving it up every now and then, but this is the first time we ever put serious power to it, my uncle said the car jumped quite a bit when the secondaries opened up, guess its not a smart thing to do on jack stands tongue.gif Im running a pcv valve and an oil plug in my valve covers. should I use a breather instead of the oil fill plug? my dad was thinking we have too much crank case pressure.

You need an air inlet vent to go along with the PCV. You can't pull air out of the crankcase without having an inlet.

I recently had a balancer seal go bad and I was able able to replace it without removing the timing cover. What I did was this:

Removed the accesories and water pump from the front of the engine. Carefully pried out the old seal. Put a light smear of RTV around the outside edge of the new seal, and got it started as straight as possible by hand. Used a piece of threaded rod(grade 8, as it is my balancer installer as well) of the prioper size (I forget the size) and threaded it into the crank snout. Found a short piece of PCV pipe that is the same OD as the seal, cut square with the chop saw. Used a BIG flat washer and a nut on the back side of the PCV pipe , and tightened the nut, slowly pressing the seal into place. Essentially the same as installing the balancer. It worked perfectly, and saved the headache/heartache of breaking the front timing cover to pan seal.

Agree with Al in all aspects. My 2 cts., hopefully, the timing cover you have is not a chrome one.

hey mine is chrome and i got breathers .
no problem with the chrome cover and seal.
BTW add a bit of grease to the seal surface that contacts the balancer or itll leak there.

well it happened again! i changed my oil pan a while back and we replaced all of the seals. i think im just going to switch to a stock type timing cover and throw the billet one away! what keeps causing the seal to pop out? i keep finding fresh oil under the fuel pump. im mad because my body shop guy is coming over tomorrow to help me put the front clip on. now i have to take the radiator out and all the pulleys to see what we can do about that damn balancer seal. i can see it sticking out behind the balancer, the new one we used had a blue seal around it. we also used a good amount of rtv on it. i still havnt switched my breathers yet in my valve covers. still running a pcv brather to the back of my carb spacer and the other vaccume fitting from the back of my carb to my brake buster, along with a solid oil plug.

here is an old pic of my engine. same valve covers and breathers.
http://www.skafia.com/myPix/DCx-571896590.jpg

Is your oil fill cap vented? Is the PCV valve plugged? It sounds like you are building way to much pressure and wreaking havoc on seals. When you get the seal back in, leave the oil filler cap off and hold a sheet of paper over the hole to see if you have a lot of blowby. Have you checked manifold vacuum yet? For some reason I think it is pressure causing your problems.

I agree with deerhunter. If you have only been running the engine in the garage and have not driven it yet the rings probably are not seated yet causing excessive c'case press. Just my 2 cents. The engine does look good. probably just needs to be taken out and run some.

Did that on my boat once, splattered oil all over me, my buddy, and his son. I had a chrome cover and pan on the 454. I guess the chrome was too slippery for the seal to stay in on it’s own. I pookey‘ed the seal with permatex #1 and let it dry. Didn’t happen again.

i think im just going to switch to a stock type timing cover and throw the billet one away! what keeps causing the seal to pop out?
The hole for the seal is too large, not causing enough friction to "hold" the seal in place. Might use some Indian Head shellac or Permatex A200 on the new seal outer ring or change out for a stock timing cover, no chrome either.

As others have suggested, check crankcase pressure with a piece of paper to see if the crankcase is under a vacuum.

If changing the seal, make sure you clean the bore with lacquer thinner or Brakleen, you want all traces of oil removed for the best adhesion.

What oil pan are you using? Pre-'75 production pans used the "thin" (0.22") front seal, but '75-up production and service replacement pans for ANY year application that were made after '75 take the "thick" (0.41") front seal. Fel-Pro makes one-piece gaskets with both thicknesses of front seal, if that's what you're using.
:beers: