crankcase pressure problem, possibly, and possible causes

[davidpertuz at mindspring.com]

My G20 is sitting in the garage this week til I get a new voltage regulator plug to
replace the cracked on e(thanks, james!) but while driving my SE-R I have been
thinking about the oil thing...

The engine looks rather as if it is trying to push oil out past all the gaskets,
wherever it can. I replaced the front crank seal as it seemed to be bad, and I have
new VC gaskets and a distributor O-ring to put in thos weekend when I get the car
back up. However, it looks as if even other gaskets are wet, such as the (lower) oil
pan gasket, the PCV hose and the breather hose in the VC.

This sympton made me wonder about the crankcase pressure, so I took the PCV
valve out (it was sorta gunky-looking) and replaced it with another one sitting around
that had come out of my SE-R (I replace them every 50k or so when I do plugs and
such.) I didn't think to shake it to hear it rattle, but I have no reason to think it bad.

Oil is seeping out past this new/old PCV valve too (and the engine in my SE_R has
never had any problems) so there does seem to be a problem still.

The next thing that comes to mind as a cause of high crankcase pressure would be
bad rings. I did a compression test and compression was ~175 - ~180 on all
cylinders, which is normal, so I didn't reall yhtink any more of that. I have not done
a wet comression test, however - only dry. Presumably if I get a higher wet reading
it suggests I have bad rings, but I didn't get a bad reading to begin with. Also the
plugs look fine.

Is there anything else that can be causing high crankcase pressure? I hope it is just
bad gaskets, and it may be, but I am not so sure.

thanks,
David