I was chasing a weird oil leak on my 65 Riviera. At higher rpms or under hard (er) acceleration I got the old oil stink inside the car, so I changed the valve cover gaskets, played with the PCV, changed the valley cover seal, oil filter mount seal, you name it...still leaked from the rear sides of the block. Asking around a friend told me that the FelPro multi layer gasket could cause oil leaks on nailheads because they were two thin steel gaskets with some compound in between that would wash out and so leak oil fro the oil passage at the rear of the heads. The gaskets to use were the Best Gasket or Victor Reinz type. This weekend I somehow managed to sneak away from the easter egg search and sure enough I found the leaky FelPros in my nailhead Here´s where it leaked... hard to see, but in person it´s pretty obvious. good news was, everything is nice and clean inside, not wear to speak of, all cam lobes still there luckily both , the old and the new headgaskets are .037" compressed height I thought I´d share what I found, maybe it´ll be a shortcut for someone in the future...
Almost back together... I went on a test drive tonight and changed the oil, the leaks and the stink are gone, glad I changed the headgaskets. After the test drive I gave it a good wash and now we are ready for spring!
Me too! I sold my 61 LeSabre and an old beater BMW when this Rivi turned up almost 10 years ago... time flys!
Thanks for the information. I bought the Best Gasket set for my 401. I too understand that the FelPros leak.
One of the few "perfect" cars imo. You can do nothing to make it look better, only different. One of my bucket list cars glad it now smells as good as it looks..
Great looking Riviera! Thanks for that info. Not sure what brand of gasket was used in my Nailhead as I bought it as a new rebuild and I think my large stock of Nailhead gaskets are all Fel-pro. All I have to do now if I have an oil leak is remember this vital info LOL
Hi guys, I hope I get an answer because I'm not used to forums... what brand of head gasket did you install so that there is no more leak? Thanks for your help!
Either Victor Reinz, or Best are the gaskets to use. Here are links to both companies: https://victorreinz.us/ https://bestgasket.com/
Yes, both Victor Reinz and Best Gasket are the good ones. I learned that after I had put my 401 together with Felpro headgaskets. My new Gasherd are not leaking yet, but I already have an extra set of Victor Reinz on the shelf...just in case and I have another 425 to build .
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