Hello everyone,heres the story and I hope someone can help me out with a diagnosis. So im driving my 1971 mustang which I recently had a fresh 302 bored over put in with new heads a cam and the whole deal. Im driving it and ive put about 300 miles on the engine since the installation. When suddenly i look in my rear view and im seeing large amounts of smoke (i didnt notice for a little because i thought it was water being kicked up cause it was raining) and i notice a tapping from the engine so i pull over immediately. I open the hood and smokes in there to, i turn the car on and i hear the tapping again and i assume the oil is low for some strange reason when i just checked it at a perfect level before I left. I get under the car while its running and oil is basically spewing out. I could not exactly locate the area of the leak because it was night time. So i have the car towed home and i just got under the car and itappears that the oil was hitting the headers hense the smoke, and it was leaking and hitting the flywheel and spraying. Is this the rear main seal? What else could the leak be because i know it was leaking around the rear engine tranny area? Would a main seal leak pretty much empy my oil pan in a matter of minutes?Do you think this guy who installed my engine should be obliged to replace it because only 300 miles were put on it and the installation was done about 3 months ago? Thanks so much guys

 

Yes it could be the rear main I'm afraid the tapping sound could be a rod bearing failure. If the guy you talk aboutdid the re-build and the installation in the car, then yes I would say he should be responsible for the repairs. It is hard to diagnose a problem like this without actually hearing it, but loss of oil, and a tapping noise isn't good.

 

I thought that the tapping could have simply been from the lack of oil, is that possible or most likely a failure?

 

I suppose that it could be a lifter ticking because it lost oil pressure. I can't really say without hearing it, but if it isn't, the only other thing I ca think of is arod bearing because the rods would lose oil before the mains because te oil for the rods comes through the main bearings. If it is a rod, the oil pressure probably won't come up. Really hard to say without being there. Take it back to the guy that did it and make him fix it.