Mystery oil leak solved... check your bung plug!

[Cobra4B]

Oil pan bung that is Car had always been dry, never dripping anything on the floor. After backing it out of the garage a few months ago after running it in February at VIR I noticed some oil on the floor. I figured it was the rear main seeping from putting Amsoil 5w40 in the motor. The car at outside covered up for a month as I futzed with my Corvette. Fired up the car a few days back to get it ready for Viperdays next weekend and found oil again in the driveway.

Once up in the air I found it wasnt from the rear main at all, started looking in the area where the dipstick tube threads in, that ara looked oily. Cleaned it off and waited a few hours. Found oil on the left-rear corner of the oil pan. Then started looking at the plug just aft of the dipstick tube. I decided to pull it out and re-seal it. Upon pulling it out oil started oozing out. I guess full oil is higher than that part of the pan. The oil cam out for about five minutes before stopping. I ended up draining the rear of the pan, sealing the plug, and re-inserting. I put 5 quarts back in and brought it up just a bit lower than the full notch in my dipstick (not going by the full mark, mine has a special notch in it for the proper full mark). I checked the oil level once the oil had stopped oozing out of the hole and filled it up to that.

My question is... whats the proper oil level? The books all say 7 quarts w/ a filter change. 7 quarts gets the oil level dead on the notch on my dipstick. However 7 quarts fills the pan over the left side wing where the dipstick tube goes in and where this bung is.

Pictures:




If anything take a look at it

~Brian

[PanozDuke]

Brian,
I know this is an old post and this subject might have been resolved somewhere else. The proper refill with filter is 7 quarts and it is supposed to be over the level of this bung. The bung provides a place for an oil temp sender in other applications so the oil needs to be there. I just installed one of these on a 5.0 and when I installed the provided dip stick from Canton, the full was about an indicated quart low on the stick. Instead of remarking the stick with a new notch, I measured the difference between the level on the stick and the full mark and cut the dip stick tube by that amount using a tubing cutter. Now the full level is at the full mark so no confusion is possible (even for me with chronic CRS). If the level had been above the full mark, my solution wouldn't work and I would have been looking for a spacer I could have slid onto the dip stick to raise it in the tube to get the full level on the mark.

Mike