update3 test results

Hey all: Put an electric fuel pump and a fresh can of gas to eliminate the fuel pump as a source of oil. Not coming from there.
The compression test shows 152 psi on all cylinders. A mechanic lent me his leak down guage. I've never had the need to do a test myself, so I'll give you the readings and see what you think:
Pressure in-60 psi (all cylinders), reading on guage from cylinder averaged 70 psi, needle steady, did not gain or drop. If I turn up the incoming air pressure, the cylinder guage will go up. Same way if I lower the incoming pressure, the cylinder guage will drop in pressure. At no time will the guage from the cylinder drop below the incoming air pressure guage. I'm assuming if the cylinder guage reading fell below the incoming air guage reading you might have a problem. Correct or not? Air was only heard in the crank case. No signs of air in the cooling, exhaust, intake, etc. If the leak down test looks ok and I've eliminated the fuel pump, I've eliminated everyway oil could get into a cylinder, per say, but it's getting in there somehow!! I guess my only other option is to tear down and start over. In all honesty though, even the majority of some 25 people I've talked to (including all ya) really don't feel the grease would be a "major" problem, or would just delay the rings seating. I'm down to the only thing repeated on both rebuilds is the grease. Please let me know what you think about the leak down test. All 8 plugs are saturated with oil, and I swear it runs awsume like nothings wrong! By the way being so desperate as I am, I hopped on another forum and in over a week no one has replied! You guys (or gals if any on here) responded immediatly and helped me try to solve my problem! That's cool!! Thank you. I do have one other idea. I got to thinking about when the cover under the intake was remounted it was fastened in 4 new holes. (the cover mounted to the intake) The 4 old holes are not plugged. I assumed they don't go all the way through. What if for some reason they do? It would answer the oil I found under the carb, in the intake. It would then answer why all 8 cylinders could get oil. (2 holes each side so it would feed both planes of the intake). Anyone ever heard of such a problem?? The first time I seen the oil there is originally why I thought the fuel pump, although improbable. Also thought on the rarity of too much oil in cylinder escaping into the intake during overlap, again, improbable. Also, even with the road tube open, the oil fill tube, without breather cap on, blows smoke out of it like crazy. Ok, usually that points to blow by and rings, right? (the more you rev it, the more it smokes). Can you see why this is driving me a bit crazy? Better let ya go. Later

If you do have holes in the bottom of the intake that penetrate the plenum, it will suck oil from the lifter valley. I'd certainly check that out and would bet this is your problem.

Regarding the leak down test; Did you actually turn off the incoming air to see how long each cylinder would hold pressure? If the cylinders will hold pressure, and based upon the compression readings you describe, you probably do not have a ring problem - but it is also possible that excessive oil in the chambers will help seal the pistons against the cylinder walls and hide a worn ring problem.

if you have blow-by coming out of your breather, one of two things are happening. either you have a ring problem or your pvc stystem is not working. if you were sucking oil by the intake gasket it wouldn't come out of the breathers. if its compression in the pan then its rings. :CRY:

Denny: The guage is a Mac Tool brand. Guage on left reads incoming pressure with a regulator underneath it. Guage on right is reading pressure back from the cylinder. I don't know about the percentage. Not doing this before, and not having the instructions that came with the guage I can't tell ya much. I assume I'll have a little bit of air in crank case by the gap of the rings, just a pinch. The air doesn't sound like it's gushing in there, you can hear a little though.

Hi MainCap: Yes, the cylinders will hold pressure for a moment and leak down really slow. I assume a cylinder isn't 100% sealable due to the ring gaps, (except maybe if you use gapless rings), so I assume the guage from cylinder will slowly drop once I shut off the air supply due to the gaps. (this set of rings only have 85 miles on them).

It1s10: We have an open system, no pvc valve. That would leave rings. Food for thought-if I'm sucking enough oil into the cylinders, overwhelming the rings, could cylinder pressure force the blow by by the rings thus letting it come out the breather? If I didn't have so much oil in the cylinders, right away I would guess rings with smoke out the breather cap in excess. (just a guess).

One thing I forgot to mention on the compression test. I went ahead and added oil to the cylinders, (as if I need more in there!) and got 0 more pressure on the guage. Again though, with so much oil it could be possible to get false readings as you say.
I hope it would be as easy as the intake. If that's not it, it puts me back to the rings and tear down. All for now.

smoke coming out of a breather closed or opened is compression getting pass the rings and the smoke you see is oil being blow out of the pan. the smoke is oil. there is something wrong with your rings, pistons, and or block. sucking oil from anywhere above the pistons has no effect on the breathing. just make it smoke out the tail pipe.

Withe the grease on the cylinders at the time of the assembly, I still think the cylinders are glazed over and not allowing the rings to seat. IMO, pop it apart, re hone it, end gap and install a new set of rings. Like Mike said, smoke coming out the breather means compression is getting past the rings.......JMO

What kind of heads are you running, you might have stated but don't remember. Do you have screw in studs in your heads?

Quote:

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Originally posted by 73RS
What kind of heads are you running, you might have stated but don't remember. Do you have screw in studs in your heads?

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WHAT DOES SCREW IN STUDS HAVE TO DUE WITH OIL CONSUMPTION?:whacked:

hey all: Correct on oil out the breather and rings. Got the leak down test figured out. The average percentage is 12%. From research, it seems 5-10% is ok, at 20% or more you probably have a problem. If the compression is good like it is, and the leak down seems ok, then how can it be the rings? The only thing these two tests can't show is if the oil rings are doing their job. We have smoke out the exhaust, and the blow by out the breather. Both ring companies I spoke to said if you saturate the cylinder enough with oil, no set of rings in the world will seal. That's why I'm wondering if I had a leak large enough top side to overwhelm the rings and get blow by that way. The kicker is on the first rebuild the cylinder walls appeared normal, no sign of glazing. Also, Hastings rings said they found no residue of grease on the rings I sent them from the first rebuild. I think I've got it down to the rings or intake. I'll eliminate the intake and then have no choice but to tear it down. The heads are stock, no screw in studs.

if you are getting that much oil on top of your pistons you should be able to find out where its coming from. oil on top of the piston helps seal the rings,(wet comp. check) any more than that should lock the motor up. i agree if your comp. check is right you shouldn't have this problem. :HMMM:

Is it possible that the grease is blocking oil drain back? The upper rings seal,but also scrape and drain back through the slots behind them. The only other way to get all that oil in there past the rings is with positive crankcase pressure. Are you certain the oil isn't coming past the valve guides,or being drawn through a portsomehow?

as far as that much oil being sucked into the cylinder from the intake it would have to be a sizeable hole in the intake, which should give you a bad vac. leak, which you should be able to see or hear, or the motor should show low vac. reading. also if you had a hole in your intake with a vac. leak, then it wouldn't be blowing oil out of the breather, it would have a suckion at the breathers as if you had a pcv valve on it.
if you dont have a pcv valve hooked up you are gonna get some blow by out of the breather, so i think you have a small vac. leak at the intake, or valve guides, thats causing the tail pipe smoke and the breather smoke is normal. :HMMM:

How about the PCV. Problems with those can cause oil consumption.

Hey all: Your all right. (except we have no pcv valve). It wouldn't run as good as it does if there was a hole in the intake. The maker of the grease states it's melting point is 300 degrees. On the bench I heated up some on a metal plate and it would melt and slide off the plate at 190-200 degrees. I'm assuming the grease isn't blocking the drain back holes if it melts fairly ease. (no plugged holes on the first rebuild). I guess that does leave me with rings not sealing because of the grease. You all helped me realize that, thank you. I'll let ya all know when I tear down and get it back together. Thanks again for all your help!!!! It is appreciated. Later

Hmm.

I'm still betting that your unused holes in the bottom of the intake are sucking oil - and would probably seem to run fine if they are not too large with relatively balanced leakage across both plenums.

Since you are planning to tear it down, why not pull the intake first and eliminate this as the problem before you pull the motor?

Hey MainCap: We are going to do that with the intake eventually. My friend and I ran the motor for about 30-40 minutes tonight playing around with it and noticed no "solid blue" color out the exhaust, (maybe a little bit, not much) just "grayish" smoke. (keep in mind our exhaust system has a build up of oil inside). This is the first time ever it has not burned blue smoke on a regular basis out the exhaust. I'm still running on the electric fuel pump and fresh gas. There is a chance we have two problems going on at once. The ring seal is being delayed by the grease, and the chance of oil top side by either the fuel pump, or the holes in the intake. Realizing the ultra rarety of the fuel pump and oil mixing, we are going to go ahead and drive it some on the electric pump. If that doesn't pan out, then we'll pull the intake and take a peak. My friend kinda said what you say, if the holes or crack wasn't too big, the oil going through the hole, or crack, would act like a "flowing seal" where maybe the vaccum loss wouldn't be as great to affect engine running good, but enough to suck oil. I thought I could eliminate the intake altogether when I pressurized it on the motor. (backed off all the intake rockers). The only air loss was by the intake guides to which you could barely hear. Basically the intake sealed up like a tank. I would take the air hose off and plug the hole with my finger, wait for a bit, and when removing my finger, air would rush out like you took your shop hose off an air bubble or the like. (I made a plate to go where the carb is out of 1/4 inch steel, drilled and tapped a fitting into the plate for air. my machinist came up with the idea). Good way to check intake gasket seal or the rate of air by the intake guides. (during test also used my stethoscope to listen in the crankcase, etc. for air loss). Also no air association (or in) the exhaust crossover. One more way to test a motor. If that test shows intake is ok, that leaves me with the rings, or a rare problem with the fuel pump. The only other thing in my mind that is different from stock is the drain back holes behind the oil rings. The stock piston had 8, the new ones have 4 small ones. Most people feel this is not it either when I bring it up. Grease or not, in some 25 years, have I've ever heard of a new motor burn so much oil. My machinist said it this way, with tight clearances you could almost leave the rings off and it wouldn't burn that much oil like ours is. Also said with fresh guides it would be hard to dump such oil. (if guides were an issue ). He just feels the rings can't be that screwed up, grease or not. (especially after two ring sets and fresh cylinders). Even Hasting rings said twice over the phone with me, they can't imagine the grease ever being my problem. If I could eliminate the grease as a problem, does anyone have input on the drain back holes? It would be kinda nice to know what to look for when I get to the tear down. Some 20 pistons I've looked at has at least 6 holes and are bigger holes than on ours. CP piston company said on average their pistons have 6 drain back holes. Federal Mogul said don't worry about that, that's not your problem, even before he heard of what my problem was! Wasn't impressed with talking to him. If I'm not boring you all too much with this problem, I'll continue to keep ya updated. Thanks. Later

You have a very confusing problem here. you are obviously burning the oil evenly across the cylinders or you would be filing the bad hole plug bad. I personally don't think rings are your problem in this case although I have seen it before on a new engine when I was young. I bought a slaughter house engine for a truck when I was in diesel mechanic school because I threw a rod and didn't have space or time to build my own. Within a few thousand rough mud riding miles I got the motor hot and all the ends broke because they touched from expansion. I had sixtie thousanths ring gap or more on 6 pistons. But that isn't your problem. I would eliminate rings and grease and valve stem guides/seals. I been thinking about the intake but it's not all that logical TO ME because the oil really has a long way to go to get there. What I mean by this is the intake is a few inches above the oil for one: It would be just like saying your pcv is burning a quart of oil a minute, it should only be sucking a mist like the pcv. For 2: You wouldn't have all that blow-by because intake vacuum would be sucking it up. The only logical reason I see is the fuel pump blowed a seal because It does have oil access to it in volume. But what thows that theory out is the fuel in the bowls of the carb would be completely full of oil. You could always put the pump back on and let it flow into a bucket while you run the motor off the electric pump to see if oil is mixing with the gas. I wouldn't tear into the motor just yet. Tried that once already and it didn't fix anything. It's somewhere external in my thoughts. Have you checked the carb for oil in the bowls and what kind is it?? Well, you keep testing and we'll keep thinking.....I also don't think the drain holes will do it either, unless they were completely stopped up. Like you said, melting point of grease is to low. You have already burned the grease out the cylinders by now anyway.

A blown fuel pump diaphragm will dilute the oil with gas. Never seen one suck oil into the gas.
I don't remember you saying what happened to this engine to require rebuilding in the first place. Was it a runner, or built up from parts? Did it just get old, or did it break? I'm reaching here, may be a source of a hidden crack somewhere in its history.

the fuel pump cant pick up oil out of the pan and carry it to the carb. the fuel pump can dump fuel into the pan, but then your oil will check overfull. i'm sure you've checked that. if you think about it a motor sitting idleing, with any rings in it at all, the oil cant get on top of the piston. the compression would keep it in the pan. now the compression would blow it out of the breathers. not knowing how bad the blow by is i'd have to say you have a leak above the heads. if you find and fix a problem above the head and you get rid of the tail pipe smoke, i think you're gonna still have the blow by. :HMMM:

Confusing problem indeed. Originally the motor just had excessive cylinder wear due to it lived on gravel roads most of it's life. It's my bosses car to which he grew up next to the guy who originally owned it and rode in it as a kid. The motor had never been apart and had 100,000 miles on it. My boss liked the car enough to fully frame off restore it. His other '57 with a 283 I did for him turned out great, so he let me do the second one too. (the first one took runner up in class at a denver super chevy show).
I know the rarety of it being the fuel pump, but obviously want to eliminate everything possible, logical or not. I did a gas comparison in four clean glasses. 1. unhooked line by carb and took sample. 2. took some out of the cars gas tank. 3. got some fresh gas. 4. put some oil in fresh gas. Test inconclusive. The gas from the tank and by the carb look the same. The fresh gas looked lighter in color than from car. The color of gas I put oil in did darken to the color of gas out of the car. Unfortunately, it's winter here and don't know if the fresh gas is treated for the winter, giving it a lighter color. When I drop oil into the gas, it drops to the bottom of the glass. Let sit for days and no oil at bottom or top of gas. Obviously they mix together so well that when I empied the glass with oil in gas, the glass didn't have no oil residue on the bottom of the glass. One would have to have it chemically analyzed to find out for sure. That would explain why there's none in the carb. But why the oil under the carb in the intake plenum I mentioned earlier in one thread? That one makes no sense. (that's why I decided to consider the fuel pump). But I showed myself that oil and gas mixes by my one test in the glass, then how could one explain oil in the intake? Any ideas? (of course the gas is atomized and maybe the oil could stay in the intake for there wasn't full strenth gas to wash the oil down or mix with it well) Boy am I grabbing at straws. I do realize a bit of blow by is normal, ours seems more so. Blow by as standard points to the rings. We'll keep trying. It's snowing here again so I can't get it out yet to put some more miles on it. We did find some fresh oil down under the fuel pump. None seems to be coming out the "breather hole". I wiped it clean and will watch it. It was still positive not seeing much blue smoke last nite. That would be mega rare to have it be the fuel pump, but what if I'm the lucky one to get such a pump? New parts don't always mean they work right. (found that out restoring two cars). What if the case was cracked and the oil could get on the right side of the diaphram to "pull" oil into the gas somehow. I have heard of two storys of oil in gas because of a pourous diaphram, one story from Hasting rings web site. He was loosing oil and couldn't find out why. He took his motor apart and together again, same problem. In desperation he changed the only thing left, the fuel pump, and problem fixed, so the story goes. So I guess I'm not to crazy to consider the fuel pump as part of my problem. I'll keep looking. Honestly want to try everything before I consider taking it apart. I'll eliminate the fuel pump first, and probably pull the intake soon and eliminate any holes or cracks as the problem. Sounds like a plan. Thanks all

There are not many ways for it to get under your carb. Those extra holes, intaked cracked, etc. You may just need to swap it out and try another old one it could even be cast iron or whatever Also, with all the oil in the pipes and mufflers, its going to be hard to know when you find the problem cause it will smoke for a while yet most likely.


Another thought, if the intake was that severly cracked to suck that much oil, wouldn't it have a hellashous vacuum leak? My cars won't run with a simple vacuum line off.

Just an off the wall idea here, maybe the grease used to lubricate the cylinders partially glazed the bored, when burnt it will probably leave a residue, may need clear it out. I would not put a foreign material in there, but if the lubrication system checks out, ie getting oil everywhere, timining is good, no vaccum leaks (that you can find) and no other obvious reasons for the smoke and minimal risk of major damage by running the motor then take it for a drive.

Put the best gas in there possible, ie nice high octane premium fuel, it has detergents in it which may help break down any build up.

Get the engine up to normal operating temperture and then give it a nice hard run under load. Keep it nice and hot, plenty of revs, but no shock loading let it wear any crap of the cylinder walls, bed in rings etc. Air flow will help flush carbon etc out of the combustion chamber, burn carbon etc.

If it does not work then you will pull it down anyway, and you had some fun before hand, or it works and you dont have to pull it down. I would only do it if there is a low risk to the motor, ie running out of oil blah blah, burning a little oil will not hurt to much.

Also oil and gas mixed together will be hard to tell, but mix some oil and gas together in a glass jar, not to much oil then let the gas evaporate. put the same amount of gas in another jar and let it evaporate with the oil mix. The gas with oil should leave a slight oil film on the jar, the gas should be dry feeling.

Justin

Hey camaro fever: I'm allowing my self some room on the oil in the exhaust. That will take awhile to burn out. I should eliminate the intake because my pressure test shows it's sealed tight, and I have good vaccum on the guage, and it runs right. Obviously don't want to leave out any possibilities though.

Hello JL350: It is possible about the glazing. I have decided to drive it for awile and see what happens. As you kinda said, I have nothing to loose driving it. I do use premium gas in all our vehicles. I'll try the gas in oil again soon and see. I did drive it today a bit and it's not burning too bad right now. I'll keep driving it with the electric pump for now. If it is getting better, I'd put more odds on the rings are trying to seal, rather thinking its the fuel pump. I'm going to try everything I can before I rip it apart. Later

Got back from a little drive. Redid the leak down while the engine was the hottest I could get per say. I come up with 10% leakage this time. What do you think of 10%? Some feel it should be 5% on a good strong motor, engine broke in. (ours isn't though yet). The smoke wasn't too bad. Actually seemed to get less a bit by driving it a little bit harder than normal. I'll keep track of my qt per mile and see if it gets any better.