Diagnostic help with burning oil

[jsj123]

My 91 with 165k on it has been a burning a little oil on the occasional startup since I got it 3 years ago. It has been getting worse the past few weeks, and every cold start in the morning it looks like I am fogging the neighborhood. It is a dense cloud, but it stops emitting visible smoke after 5-7 minutes of running.

Normally I would suspect valve guide seals, but this is a lot of smoke. I burn about 1 quart of oil in 250 miles. At WOT, there is a bit of smoke behind me, but that looks more black (rich).

I am going to do the front 60k and the rod bearings this weekend. Before I drop $300 on the Rotunda engine tool kit, is there some more diagnosis I should do? I would really hate to spend several hours on the valve seals and find out it was something else.

The car seems to run fine, pulls up to redline and is a hoot to drive once it quits emitting visible oil smoke. Runs really badly while it is cold and smoking.

Any help is appreciated.

--Stephen

 

[SHOZ123]

Get two bottles of Auto-RX and use as instructed.

 

[swami]

have you replaced the spark plug to valve cover seals? HTH

 

[redwraith94]

Swami is right, check for oil in the spark plug wells. If that isn't it, then run a compression test. They should all be between 171 - 199 psi. If you don't find anything there, then I would suspect the valve seals.

 

[rubydist]

I don't see how oil in the spark plug wells would cause it to smoke for the first 5-7 minutes after cold start, but I can see how bad valve stem seals and/or sticky rings would do that. The amount of oil that its using a pretty high for valve stem seals alone, so I would suggest that when doing the 60k & rod bearings, you pull the heads, do the valve stem seals and pull the pistons out to see what the rings are like. (However, the less expensive route has already been suggested via Auto-RX.)

 

[SHObill]

Get two bottles of Auto-RX and use as instructed.

1 12 oz bottle shipped for $26.77! Another SHO specific part! $$$ LOL
can't seem to find any around here locally. Is this really how much it sells for?

 

[SHOZ123]

You need two bottles and the only place to get it is at that site.

 

[Kens1992mtxSHO]

Instructions say to use with conventional oil and returning to synthetic may cause the problem to return...

out of curiosity, has anyone used this product then used synthetic oil regularly after?

 

[SHOZ123]

I did and the oil burning stopped.

My '93 was going through a quart of oil every 500 miles.

The procedure I used was poured in a bottle with conventional oil. Drive the car for 1.5k and changed the filter, 3k miles and change the oil. Then changed the oil using conventional oil, added another bottle and drove 5k, then changed the oil again using conventional oil for the flush phase. I drove 3k on the flush oil and during this time I had to add a quart. But from then on the oil burning had just about stopped.

Switched to synthetic and the oil burning issue was gone.

 

[swami]

rubydist do a search?