A '32 Coupe has a bad oil leak from behind the harmonic balancer. The timing gear cover gasket is not leaking. The balancer (363741) and oil deflector and all parts are in the correct position. The leak is from the crankshaft hole in the cover behind the balancer, but it's only leaking overnight after running the engine for a few minutes. The oil drain hole behind the crankshaft gear is not plugged. Oil pressure is more than 20 lbs. at idle with a warm engine. More oil seems to be filling inside the bottom of the cover than can be drained through the hole back into the oil pan.

At this point, the leading suspect is too much clearance in the front main bearing, with the possible assistance of higher oil pressure.

My '32 Cabriolet also has higher oil pressure but does not leak.

I'm going to remove the ignition distributor, spin the oil pump to see what happens.

What do you think?

20 pounds at idle with a warm engine is too much oil pressure.

Dave,
What is the viscosity of the oil? If that is okay then check the oil pipes for blockage. I had a '28 engine that pegged the oil gauge (30 psig) when it was first started. Took it apart and cleaned out the oil tubes. Had a hard black solid in them (like coal). Don't know where it can from or how it go there but it did. Still had some I missed so after running a short while again pegged the gauge. Finally got it cleaned out and then gave 15-20 psig when cold with 10W-30 and 2-5 psig when hot. My blood pressure dropped as well.

Also the heavy ,cold oil can not return fast enough.
The high oil pressure is common with cold oil but should drop after a few minutes.

I had similar problems with oil leaks from the timing cover and with the help of this forum we got them resolved.

Check out some older posts such as:

https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/12698/Re:_crank_shaft_oil_leak#Post12698

https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/15660/'32_Oil_flow_past_front_main_b#Post15660

See if it helps. I'll look for a few more postings later.

Mike

Front main bearing clearance seems ok, oil viscosity is normal and there's no problem with the oil distributor. Rubber O rings and plastic spacers on the inner hub of the harmonic balancer have stopped the oil leak. Maybe it will be a permanent fix, if not I will drop the oil pan to see what kind of pump is inside. I still suspect the leak was caused by higher pressure and greater volume of oil than could be returned to the oil pan.

It still acts as though you have too much oil pressure.