Intermittent oil consumption and smoke.

[DZL JIM]

This one has us stumped.
Customer's truck, '00 with 230k-ish miles.
Motor was overhauled less than a year ago, complete top to bottom with Ford kit. Runs great, very little blow by.
We just replaced the turbo, fresh from Barder. Intake runners soaked in oil, thought for sure it was turbo.
Truck will still burn about 2 qts of oil in 500 miles. Every so often it will smoke out the tail pipe quite severely, but not all the time. Definitely oil smell, it's burning oil somehow....
It doesn't make sense, and we need to figure out where the oil is going.

Anyone have any ideas that we have not already taken care of?

Thanks.

 

[golfer]

run a compression test to rule out the obvious

if compression checks out ok, then inspect the valve seals.

under what conditions does it smoke?

only on a cold start?
after any start?

(extended) idling only, acceleration, deceleration, etc?

 

[DZL JIM]

Forgot to add new FORD cylinder heads installed at time of motor Overhaul, I'd like to think valve seals are not the problem, either.

No consistency of the smoke. Sometimes cold, warm, hot, totally random. Sometime haze, sometimes severe, most times not at all.

You can almost always get a haze and huff of oil when you rev it at idle, though.

Thanks for the input.

 

[golfer]

not sure what a 'ford kit' is..


was the engine bored/honed? was anything measured? or... plastigauge and 'yep still has crosshatch'?

 

[ju015dd]

Does is smoke like this?

These are upside down and don't know why but here is at idle and one at high idle. At the moment I have no freaking clue as to why mine is doing this but hoping you find out with yours so maybe I will have something to go with.....

 

[DZL JIM]

not sure what a 'ford kit' is..
was the engine bored/honed? was anything measured? or... plastigauge and 'yep still has crosshatch'?

The Ford kit has all the gaskets, pistons, oil cooler, all bearings, etc, the total Overhaul kit for $1200 or whatever. Cylinders honed, nothing bored. Not sure on any build specs beyond that.

Sorry I had trouble viewing those videos.

 

[POWER-STRUCK]

any possibility that the dipstick is reading wrong and possibly over filled?
usually the only areas they will consume that amount with minimal blowby is either turbo, center injector o-rings or overfilled with oil.

generally when it is an overfill issue the smoke will appear at about 14 psi of boost.

 

[golfer]

The Ford kit has all the gaskets, pistons, oil cooler, all bearings, etc, the total Overhaul kit for $1200 or whatever. Cylinders honed, nothing bored. Not sure on any build specs beyond that.

Sorry I had trouble viewing those videos.

std bore pistons in a 230k mile block...

I'd run a compression test.

we average an engine build every 2 weeks, and have never seen one block that was suitable for std bore pistons. Generally .010 over bore won't even clean up the wear & taper on the cylinder bores.

was compression checked prior to or after the rebuild?

 

[ju015dd]

Please keep us informed as to what you find. I am in the same boat with a very similar situation I think. Hope it will give me some insight of what I have going on before I take it back to the builder this coming jan. Thanks

 

[DZL JIM]

std bore pistons in a 230k mile block...
I'd run a compression test.
we average an engine build every 2 weeks, and have never seen one block that was suitable for std bore pistons. Generally .010 over bore won't even clean up the wear & taper on the cylinder bores.
was compression checked prior to or after the rebuild?

Dave,
Thank you very much for the input. We will check compression and go from there.
FWIW, the TRUCK has 230k miles, it came in with no compression on 2 cylinders and the customer provided a motor with low 100k miles, I don't exactly recall mileage, that was then Overhauled. Figured the other motor was just not worth working with.
I did not get a chance to hear that motor run, but bore gauge showed a very good bore on all 8. Not to say this one is perfect, we'll check compression just to be sure.

Justin,
We're pretty sure it's not an overfill issue. The truck will keep drinking oil. Low blow by, severe oil consumption, and a very wet intake lead us to think turbo.

 

[mandkole]

A wet plenum would seem to indicate turbo as well. The CAC is likely filled with oil. Perhaps that has become a reservoir and it shoves through some larger amounts of oil once in awhile...

 

[ghohouston]

^could be. I had a 6.0 run away on me during a power balance test because the compressor side seal had let go and filled the cac with oil. It was horrible, truck also had a blown egr cooler, it filled the shop with thick white smoke, we just let it go and all got out of the shop lol. It eventually committed suicide

 

[powerlifter405]

^could be. I had a 6.0 run away on me during a power balance test because the compressor side seal had let go and filled the cac with oil. It was horrible, truck also had a blown egr cooler, it filled the shop with thick white smoke, we just let it go and all got out of the shop lol. It eventually committed suicide

That same happened to Swamps w/ the 7.3 on a runaway IIRC. Oil filled intercooler, but the 7.3 lived :thumbup:

 

[ju015dd]

That same happened to Swamps w/ the 7.3 on a runaway IIRC. Oil filled intercooler, but the 7.3 lived :thumbup:

how does this happen? As far as the intercooler getting that much oil in it?

 

[ghohouston]

The compressor side seal starts leaking the oil that should be feeding the bearing cartridge and returning to the engine, but instead, it goes into the I/c, eventually putting a lot of oil into it, and then it runs away because its ingesting the oil

 

[DZL JIM]

A wet plenum would seem to indicate turbo as well. The CAC is likely filled with oil. Perhaps that has become a reservoir and it shoves through some larger amounts of oil once in awhile...

Agreed and we told the customer he needs to replace it.
But that won't cause the motor to consume oil, though, only smoke.

 

[Tom S]

Kind of an odd random thought but do you think that the valve cover on the CCV side is not properly draining back to the pan. The wet intake tract seems like a clue to follow up on to me.

 

[ghohouston]

Kind of an odd random thought but do you think that the valve cover on the CCV side is not properly draining back to the pan. The wet intake tract seems like a clue to follow up on to me.

i dont see how that would be the case, what would "drain" anyways? theres a bigger problem if theres that much oil leaving the ccv

 

[Tom S]

I was trying to think of reasons why he has such a wet intake track with no real blowby and a new charger. Just a passing idea but oil pooling on top of that head that gets whipped up by the valve train is where I was going with it. Another thought that occured to me was to disconnect the CCV and see what you have there.

 

[TyCorr]

@golfer-didnt you say there was a set of.conditions that make these trucks.smoke at idle.when cold? Mine.doesnt burn oil between changes but when its cold it has a slight bluish tint. It doesnt.smell like oil though. It is acrid and burns the eyes. Almost like a tuning parameter is off.