Oil leaking from distributor

I've had a nice drip from the dizzy so I recently re-indexed it and rtv'd it twice, but the leak was still happening. I decided to watch the drip and lo and behold, oil is coming up the dizzy shaft, into the dizzy and leaking out the tiny hole in the base. I've never read of that before, but guess it's time for a replacement.

First thing I'd do is make sure the crank case vents are open. The rear one is prone to getting clogged. The front one tends to disintegrate over the years and leaks vacuum.

Also check the rear hole in the valve cover where the rear crank case ventilation tube goes into the valve cover. Make sure it is open and also the nipple on the intake isn't plugged. The easiest way to check is to try and blow through it, the tubing and the connections. These pieces can get brittle with age, slow and easy, brain instead of brawn is the key.

After the crank case ventilation system is checked and clean, remove the oil filler on the valve cover and rev the engine moderately and see how much pressure is building in the crankcase. If the rings are worn, excessive pressure can build in the crankcase. Often the air filter is oil soaked from blow by.

May be one thing, may be a combination of things.

I use spray brake cleaner to try and move the sludge out of the rear crank case ventilation tube and the fittings on both ends. If the brake cleaner doesn't free them up, it will at least loosen the obstruction some.

Do you have a gasket on there? Supposed to be one between the distributor and the block. http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1180055,parttype,7148

If its riding all the way up into the cap then your shaft and/or bushing is probably worn past tolerance and needs to be replaced

There is play in the dizzy--it's probably 19 years old now and needs to be replaced. I do not have a gasket, just rtv. Since I put the 68mm tb from the 4.7l WJ on and had to throw together an intake(silicon 3.5"-3.25" elbow, $5 dryer duct from Lowes, 3.5" cone), I did away with the hoses and put valve cover breathers on both ends. There are blow-by vapors seen from both breathers, so the stroker could probably use fresh rings(might be at 75k).

There is a gasket for that but I don't think I have ever seen it outside a gasket kit.

Felpro makes the gasket. Available at most auto parts stores.

It's not leaking where the gasket goes, but up an inch(hard to see drip forming in pic).

I see the drip, coming from the relief hole at the
distributor bottom. Since you have the crankcase
vented adequately, the oil has to be coming through
worn distributor bushings. New bushings or new
distributor is the cure.

The stock distributor gaskets are very thin. When I did
a distributor replacement, there was a major leak at the
gasket. And I mean major. The solution was to make a
new gasket out of thicker gasket material. That cured
the leak.