Hello Brickboarders

New guy here needing some direction. Just purchased a 1989 245 GL with an automatic. Nice rust free Texas car that I knew needed some work. I bought it from a friend who was moving out of the area, who owned it for close to a year. He made some substantial repairs to it when he bought it, then drove it without anything else major happening. It served him well, and he put quite a few miles on it.

When I bought it, the previous owner said that it had started having problems with starting right away in the colder Illinois winter. It would crank a bit longer than normal, and not run well with the check engine light on untill it gets warm. Light goes off and it idles a touch rough, but otherwise runs fine aside from the gas mileage dropping off noticibly. He noticed that when it got frigid cold it would fire right off, so he started to look for excess fuel, and found that unpluging the cold start valve/injector helped with start up when the weather warmed to around freezing. (He noticed fuel sitting in the intake.) Cold start valve leaking or injectors?

He changed the oil the day I got it from him, but he said I should clean the flame trap as he ran out of time. I cleaned it , but noticed when I pulled the hose off the oil seperator, there was a bunch of gunk in it. I dug out what I could, and figured I would do some more tinkering with the car when my Bently Manual arived.

Sorry this is so long, but here is where the real problem is. I made it about 8 miles from home the other morning, and noticed the light smoke comming from under the hood at a stop light. Went a block to a gas station and checked under the hood. It was pumping all the oil out the front of the engine at an alarming rate. Picture cutting the top off a fresh quart of oil and pouring it over the front of the engine and you get the visual. I shut the engine down before I heard any noises, so I think it survived. In that alone I feel fortunate.

Any ideas? Flame trap build pressure and push a cam seal out? Front main seal? Are there any other seals? I'm not conserned with finding what seal went bad and replacing it, but I would like to have an idea of the cause. Where should I start after the oil leak/gush is corrected?

If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for your patience and responses!
Eric