Update to my smoking/Oil consumption issue
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Update to my smoking/Oil consumption issue
I am posting this to possibly help someone else out in the future. I had oil consumption issues all last year. Thinking back on things, it started when I swapped out my valve springs and valve seals. This was in April. I read on here to use a 13mm socket and tap gently to seat the valve seals. So I did. I put the car back together and drove it . It consumed on average a quart of oil is 250 miles and smoked on wot and decel. Something wasn't right. I played with the PCV system, catch cans, and valve cover breathers to no avail. So later in the summer I decided to swap out the valve seals again. I did the same thing as before, 13mm socket and tap gently. Put it all together and it still smoked at wot. Soon after, it started smoking at idle. I thought the rings might have had a sealing issue so I bought a vacuum pump. It still smoked. I tried to do a leak down but was having trouble doing it in the car. I finally decided to send out the motor to see what the problem was. I dropped the motor from the bottom. Once on the ground, I decided to try doing a leak down again just to see if I could determine the bad cylinder. Here was the readings 1-99% 3-99% 5-98% 7-96% 2-99% 4-95% 6-98% 8-94%. I sat back was puzzled because I thought for sure I would have found a bad cylinder. So I proceeded to tear the engine down. Once I removed the valve train, I noticed what looked like a blue stripe on the inner valve spring. These are Patriot Golds and have no blue stripe. Upon further and closer inspection, I noticed that half of my valve seals were unseated and were half way up the valve stems and the other half were barely on. I couldn't believe it, I thought they were all seated properly. I removed a spring, grabbed a 13mm socket and wanted to see how far they were seating by tapping. Well it wasn't very far and there was about 3/8" of the guide showing so tapping wasn't seating enough, you have to hit it firm to get them to seat all of the way. Lesson learned.
I bought all new valve seals and what you need to watch is that the socket can tear up the rubber on the seals. What I did was got an old retainer and flipped it upside down on put it on top of teh seal and put the socket on the retainer. This way you can hit the socket harder and not worry about damaging the seal. The motor is going back in today and should have it fired back up within a week or so. I will post back letting you know the results but I am fairly certain I found the problem.
I bought all new valve seals and what you need to watch is that the socket can tear up the rubber on the seals. What I did was got an old retainer and flipped it upside down on put it on top of teh seal and put the socket on the retainer. This way you can hit the socket harder and not worry about damaging the seal. The motor is going back in today and should have it fired back up within a week or so. I will post back letting you know the results but I am fairly certain I found the problem.
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i had the same exact problem,tried all the crap you tried to vent it but all of a sudden i broke something else and now it backfires and makes a horrible knocking noise lol. i replaced my seals and springs not long before this and figured i didn't seat the valve seals properly. For now i pulled the rockers and pushrods and they're fine. springs look ok, my next step is pulling the heads off
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I am posting this to possibly help someone else out in the future. I had oil consumption issues all last year. Thinking back on things, it started when I swapped out my valve springs and valve seals. This was in April. I read on here to use a 13mm socket and tap gently to seat the valve seals. So I did. I put the car back together and drove it . It consumed on average a quart of oil is 250 miles and smoked on wot and decel. Something wasn't right. I played with the PCV system, catch cans, and valve cover breathers to no avail. So later in the summer I decided to swap out the valve seals again. I did the same thing as before, 13mm socket and tap gently. Put it all together and it still smoked at wot. Soon after, it started smoking at idle. I thought the rings might have had a sealing issue so I bought a vacuum pump. It still smoked. I tried to do a leak down but was having trouble doing it in the car. I finally decided to send out the motor to see what the problem was. I dropped the motor from the bottom. Once on the ground, I decided to try doing a leak down again just to see if I could determine the bad cylinder. Here was the readings 1-99% 3-99% 5-98% 7-96% 2-99% 4-95% 6-98% 8-94%. I sat back was puzzled because I thought for sure I would have found a bad cylinder. So I proceeded to tear the engine down. Once I removed the valve train, I noticed what looked like a blue stripe on the inner valve spring. These are Patriot Golds and have no blue stripe. Upon further and closer inspection, I noticed that half of my valve seals were unseated and were half way up the valve stems and the other half were barely on. I couldn't believe it, I thought they were all seated properly. I removed a spring, grabbed a 13mm socket and wanted to see how far they were seating by tapping. Well it wasn't very far and there was about 3/8" of the guide showing so tapping wasn't seating enough, you have to hit it firm to get them to seat all of the way. Lesson learned.
I bought all new valve seals and what you need to watch is that the socket can tear up the rubber on the seals. What I did was got an old retainer and flipped it upside down on put it on top of teh seal and put the socket on the retainer. This way you can hit the socket harder and not worry about damaging the seal. The motor is going back in today and should have it fired back up within a week or so. I will post back letting you know the results but I am fairly certain I found the problem.
I bought all new valve seals and what you need to watch is that the socket can tear up the rubber on the seals. What I did was got an old retainer and flipped it upside down on put it on top of teh seal and put the socket on the retainer. This way you can hit the socket harder and not worry about damaging the seal. The motor is going back in today and should have it fired back up within a week or so. I will post back letting you know the results but I am fairly certain I found the problem.
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I got the Fel-Pro Seals from Advanced Auto Parts. When you redo yours, try seating one of your old ones and see if it seats further down. I took the 13mm socket and hit it pretty good to see how much further it would seat. Good Luck...
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I drove it around this past weekend and no smoke so far. Keeping my fingers crossed that it is resolved. Also I added Cats to my exhaust and I let it idle after I took it for the short cruise and no more oil/raw fuel smell.
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had same issues before
I have had the same issues with smoking on my new motor. Here is what i have found after 3 sets of seals. the first set was the ones that came with my spring kit from Patriot. i seated them with the 11mm socket but had to literally tap them on. i noticed that i marred a few of the seals and springs. it smoked. Then i tried the fel-pros and had the same issues. My heads are AFR's, so i pm'd Tony Mamo, he stated that he has always used GM seals and has always had good luck. So i bought a set from the stealership. What i noticed the gm's i was able to press on with some force but no tapping required, but still seated very snug. So with the gm seals no smoking anymore. i have had the valve covers off and took a peek multiple times, they are not riding up at all. From now on only gm seals for me.
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They don't even have to be riding up the valve stems. If they aren't seated all the way it will smoke. Also I have had my car out a couple times and no smoking at all. Such a relief..