94 Lebaron oil leak

[Business810]

My brother has a 1994 Lebaron GTC convertible that needed some maintenance pretty badly, and my brother knows nothing about cars, so he said "fix whatever you have to, I'll pay you for it." So yesterday I pop the hood to replace some filters and stuff (it has 73k, a little slow on some maintenance stuff like spark plugs) and I find a large amount of oil sludge around cylinder 6. At first I try to be optimistic and hope it's just a build up from 10 years of driving, so I wipe it off, change the air filter, clean the throttle body, and replace the PCV valve, close it up and take it for a quick drive. This afternoon I go back to it, pop the hood, and there's more oil/sludge. As I said, it seems to be coming from the #6 cylinder head. However, the oil dipstick says the oil amount is still ok and it hasn't lost that much. It's due for a change in 500 miles or so, so I'm just going to do that sometime over the next few days, maybe that'll give a little more insight into the problem.

My question is, how bad is a leak like this? What probably is wrong? How much would it cost to fix? And if it's going to require a rebuilt engine, he'd probably just give me the car to play with because it's not worth paying a shop that much on a 10 year old car, so would this be a good opportunity for someone who's never rebuilt an engine before to learn a few things (and not really have to worry about screwing things up even more than they already are)?

Thanks,
Jon

[pcv]

Check the valve cover gasket. May be leaking from there. It is a common problem. Clean the area above the spark plug/plugs and let the vehicle run or take it for a short spin and check the area above the spark plug/plugs. It is kind of hard to see, but if you see a trail of oil coming down, replace the valve cover gasket. Sometimes they call for silicon instead of a gasket. Check with the parts supplier.