Yeah, I had the grommet disintegrate on me last summer when trying to remove the PCV valve, it was supposed to be a simple tune-up. It sent a piece right into the intake, it was lodged in a port on the head.

A pair of fresh lower intake gaskets later... jeez. Couple hours turned into a couple days.

Ouch!!
I HATE when that happens!

ok well you guys are leadin me off to change my pcv valve, and i know it needs to be replaced, but first i gotta find out what in the name of god this thing is....

oh yeah and if you are wondering what all the oil is from, well this damn thing is your answer...it is somehow spewing oil ALL over!!

Well, it'* spewing oil because there is a hole in your valve cover...I beleive the tube has something to do with PCV...

The tube in the photos connects to the throttle body, just upstream of the throttle blade. This is the other half of the PCV system. The actual PCVvalve is on the backside of the intake manifold as mentioned and it allows a metered amount of air to flow from the valley area under the intake manifold into the intake manifold. The air enters the engine through the front valve cover opening through the tube in the photos. It is a closed loop system. Manifold vacuum pulls on the PCV valve, lowering the pressure inside the engine, which is filled by air flowing in the through the tube connected ahead of the throttle so it sees essentially atmospheric pressure and clean filtered air. As it is now, the engine is constantly pulling unfiltered air into the front valve cover and consequently the crankcase, not a good thing. Even in a properly operating system, it is possible to get a small amount of oil vapor into the air intake tube. When at full throttle, there is essentially no engine vacuum to pull air through in the normal direction. Any blowby or natural rise in pressure inside the engine from heat will cause the flow to reverse through the air intake tube, somewhat amplified by the rush of airflow across the port inside the throttle body, which drops the air pressure in the tube. This is normal operation.

thanks 2seater for the full explanation, and it futhers my search for a grommet for the dang thing!!!

I had this happen a year ago on my 88. I bought one from Checker, says it'* for a Toyota, works perfectly. They likely won't have the correct one, just bring it in and compare it with the ones they have in the PVC valve section. Make sure you fish any chunks out of the head.