Oil choking my carb

[Mike Bradbury]

Since the recent rebuild of my 350, I have noticed that my carb has been coughing but only when it is cold. I thought it was just an issue with cold weather and it needed to warm up, but then when it was warm and it was still doing it I thought it might be something else.
This is only a weekend truck so after a year I only have 2500 miles on the rebuild.

One day I noticed that there was oil in my air cleaner! weird since my PCV sucks in the bottom of the carb any oil should be burned off or sucked into the combustion chamber.

I believe that the baffle plates that were welded onto the after market valve covers are too small to let only crank case gases by and it is actually letting oil by too. So I made a little device that will effectively separate the oil from the gasses. To test this theory I pulled the line into the carb, so now it was a passive system rather than an active system being drawn through by the carb. sure enough there was oil being sprayed on my valve covers through my after market vents.

Here is the device I made. It made it's first appearance at the Brother's Truck show this weekend, and I got many questions like; "what is that thing?"
In 250 miles of driving I got about a teaspoon of oily gas blow by residue. I have some questions for the guys at Crower and my engine builder as to why there is so much but here is some pics I snapped of it.





This is what is inside the can






There is a drain on the bottom



A screen filter on top



The top clamp





The carb plate



Here is what I caught after 250 miles