97- Extreme oil leak

[coolfez]

Hi all,

So I was driving on the highway at night and everything was fine, then I saw this plum of smoke. We thought it was just fog and since we were going 60mph, everything was behind us.

We pulled off and stopped at a redlight, thats when all the smoke just surrounded us and it was coming from the hood. Quickly pulled into a parking lot and shut the car off and open the hood.

There was oil all over the place. Checked the oil dipstick and it was near empty. Now I have no idea what to do? Could it be something as simple as a valve cover gasket? Would that cause that much oil to leak out?

After I got it towed and added new oil, it didn't leak right away but will leak when the engine is running.

This car has always been good to me, 230K miles. I have another car that I can use so I can sell/scrape this car. Is it even worth getting it looked at from a garage? Can someone tell me what other likely reason for the leak besides cracked head gasket? Thanks!

[sarsman45]

Sounds like a gasket has gone. (really gone) If you could locate it, it wouldn't be too expensive to replace (you should double check all gaskets and seals for leaks since this came up and with the amount of miles on the car). The one thing you do have to worry is the damage that happened when you ran the car without enough oil, though it sounds like it shouldnt since you stopped the car early enough.

[Jack Deth]

i had an oil pressure switch fail (the plastic top half cracked) on an old nova, the oil sprayed out like a fountain