i am leaking a significant amount of oil (a quart every other day) and i belive it is coming from my pushrod cover, i looked at haynes and found out everything i had to take off to get the cover off and it was really hard to get it out of there. i think i may have slightly bent the cover. but, i put the cover back on and i still leak just about the same amount of oil as i did before so i think i need a new cover. to anyone that has done this before, what all do i need to take off to get it out smoothely? also, could it just look like the oil is coming from there but is really coming from somewhere else?
sorry this may not make sense, i am tired and i have worked too many days in a row with too little sleep

 

The valve cover could be leaking, or the oil pressure sender. To properly remove the cover, the distributor should come out. The power steering pump and a/c compressor will have to be unbolted and swung off to the side, if they are in the way.

 

I removed my push rod cover to replace the gasket by only removing the spark plug wires and moving the wiring harness oh yes, I removed the coil as well. I did not have to remove the distributor. You will have to remove the tubes coming from the air box and maybe shift a couple of wires etc out of the way just to make it easier. Although leaking, I later realized that most of the leak was coming from the oil presssure sending unit. It was literally blowing oil all over the underside of my truck. Now, if your rocker arm (valve cover) is leaking getting that off is a whole different matter. I have had to do that also. Not that hard really just time consuming. There are two studs welded onto the drivers side of the cover that holds a couple of sensors or switches (close to the firewall). One of mine broke off leaving a whole in the side of the cover. Might want to check that spot also. Hope this helped.
Mike

 

i have replaced the sending unit, and when i was looking for the leak's souce, the gap between the pushrod cover and valve cover had almost no oil on it, so i know it is the pushrod cover i am just surprised at the amount of oil which is leaking

 

What about the distributor? This isn't a common problem on the 300, but it is on some other engines. The Oring dries out and can't keep the oil in any more. A leak around the distributor can generate a huge volume of oil in your driveway. It could also be a leak at the front of the engine and the fan just blows the oil down the side. You can get some dye from a parts store to put in your oil that will make it obvious where the leak is. Just put the dye in the engine and run it for a few minutes. Then follow the trail.

 

Good point, I have noticed a slight leak lately around my distributor and have been keeping an eye on it. Oh the joy of driving an old Ford. Better than driving a new ............