Oil leak and freeze plug issues.

[1979C20]

Well, My driver valve cover gasket was off on one corner. So it leaked like a siv. I fixed that by replacing the gasket, no more leak. It does drip at all anymore. But somehow, after checking the oil level 4 or 5 days ago, I RAN OUT today. I dont know where it went. Just disappeared. I guess I burnt about 4 quarts in less than a week? Is that possible? I dont see any oil anywhere, except a little bit on the driver side head against the intake and a little above my passenger side exhaust ports. Also, I think the freeze plugs I installed are horrible? The freeze plug on the side of the block behind the starter started leaking so bad that I had to replace it. The one behind the passenger side engine mount clamshell is starting to drip, and the one on the front of the block under the alternator is starting to run. I dont know what the problem is. I believe they were aluminum. Would brass ones help? Its killing me to be afraid of driving too far of a trip because I'm scared of over heating. Its my daily driver, so I cannot have it out of commission for any more than a day. I would really love to pull the engine and BUILD it up. This was a budget rebuild. Cost me about 1800 to fully rebuild it. And then I have another like 700-1000 or so in repairs/replacements on the rest of the truck. But this is getting tiring. Something new goes wrong with this truck EVERY day. No joke. On my list of problems right now I have:

Fuel leak
Pinion seal leak
Power steering leak
Water leak
clutch needs to be replaced soon
Carb really needs to be rebuilt, Its on its last leg
My idle fluctuates a lot, and I dont have vacuum leaks
my throttle linkage on the carb is sticking
vanishing oil
bad vibration while accelerating and decelerating, no other time
desperately need a seat cover or something, the vinyl is starting to hurt to sit on
auxiliary power supply in cab need to be replace,
      it isnt powering my cb or tach anymore
Sirius Satellite antenna cable was severed under the
      cab out offroading at the lake a couple months ago, just discovered
My speakers and Subs for my stereo need to be rewired,
      or atleast fixed a bit. theyre cutting out,
My sway bar bushings on the driver side are gone
My driver front shock bottom bolt is gone
All of my cab mounts need to be replaced


So if you can help with the oil and freeze plug Issues that would be great. and any advice on the rest of the issues, I'm all ears! Thanks guys.

[txchainsawgogi]

assume you'll replace everything except the actual block eventually...then its not so bad. This is how mine is, well maybe not this bad! Try not to go for band aid fixes as they'll usually end up costing more than if you just did it right the first time.

Do go in order of importance... as some things are harder to fix on the side of the road

[1979C20]

Yeah, the first think im worried about is the water leak, because that can end bad. And the oil, but I will be checking the level daily now.

Oh, one thing I forgot to list in my problems, a REALLY annoying header leak. Both sides. The port flanges are warped.

[txchainsawgogi]

Seems like fixing the exhaust leak will help with the poor idle/accel. I have no idea what a freeze plug is haha, but to fix my water leaks I had to replace the rad,waterpump,all hoses and t-stat. About to fix some oil leaks on Thursday... how exciting!

[1979C20]

Well, I temp fixed the water leak. Just siliconed over the hole on the freeze plug. And I dont see the oil leaking out anywhere so I guess I'm just burning it through the exhaust. I'm going to need to replace all of the freeze plugs with brass ones, and maybe bore my engine. the exhaust leak, I need to silicone around the ports on the headers and let it harden the tighten them down onto the block and be done with it. Thats what we did on our buddy's sprint car, never leaked and lasted forever, until you took em off.