20000630012729A

(-23) I had departed from the walla walla airport at about 11:18 am. I was travelling to hood river. On take off I experienced a little engine roughness but it cleared up when I leaned the mixture. All instruments and engine gauges were reading normal and I was cruising at about 6500 feet Ms. After about 30 minutes, I started to lose rpm's. I again adjusted the mixture and checked fuel pressures, oil pressure, and engine heat. All were normal. The rpm's continued to drop and the engine stopped. I had no indication of a problem before this time. I heard no unusual or loud noises before the engine stopped. I went through my emergency check, found everything normal,a ND tried to restart the engine. The engine did restart, but oil started coming out of the cowling. To avoid the possibility of an engine fire, I shut down the engine and turned the fuel pump off. I called the walla walla tower, told them I had an engine failure and was going to attempt a forced landing. I tried to gibe them my location and entered 7700 on my transponder. I found a road that looked like my best landing option and began to set the plane for an emergency landing. The oil was continuing to come out and was c overing the windshield, obscuring my vision. I was able to land the plane on the road but had little or no visibility out the front. My left wing hit a road sign, which I could not see, causing the plane to leave the road and come to rest in a ditch beside the road.