Oil in PCV system?

[Bob Gervais]

87 Sub, 350 TBI, bone stock.

This truck has always puffed a little at startup, so I knew the day would come when I'd have to do the valve seals. I've been putting it off as long as possible though, tending to other problems with the truck instead.

Recently, it started smoking while running, intermittently. Weird, I thought, if it were the rings it should smoke pretty steadily.

By chance, I checked the PCV. It was loaded with oil, so I installed a new one. Still smoked occasionally. As an interim fix, I teed in an old air compressor separator/filter I had kicking around the shop, so that the oil would deposit there instead of getting sucked all the way into the TBI and smoking. In my 70 mile round trip commute to work, I've been dumping out about three to four ounces of oil from the separator. The tube that goes from the driver's valve cover to the TBI air filter spacer is pretty soaked with oil as well.

This seems to have come on all of a sudden, I never had this issue before. I don't know the previous history on this truck, but I know since I've had it the oil gets changed, at a maximum, every 5000 miles.

Is it possible the oil return passages are partially blocked, and more oil than normal is sitting in the head? If so, has anyone had this problem and solved it any other way than pulling the valve covers and oil pan and running some engine cleaning brushes through the passages?

Thanks in advance for any help.