Hey guys,
I've got a '88 pickup with a 22re. Just had the the head resurfaced, valves done, new PCV, and a new exhaust manifold.

Everything sounds and looks great except for my oil. It's been no more than 300 miles since the new manifold, the new PCV, and the valves job and I've noticed that my truck is consuming a lot of oil. 4 quarts to be exact.

The first thing I checked was for spots on the road, and there's nothing there. I've checked for discoloration in the exhaust and it's looks fine. I haven't found any leaks on or around the valve cover other than a small amount of seepage thru one of the grommets. I'm wondering if oil weight has anything to do with the issue.

I live in Cali, so it's never very cold. I'm currently running 5w30 and am thinking of stepping it up to SAE40 this weekend to see if anything changes. My thoughts are that the new seals on the valve cover haven't swelled yet and oil is getting through. A heavier weight oil might take care of that.

If that doesn't work, my next step is to go to my local Toyota shop and see what's up, but I want to see if I can find the problem before then.

If anyone has an idea on what might be going wrong, please, I would like some help.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

4 quarts in 300 miles?? dang! that would be showing up somewhere... are you seeing blue smoke out of the tailpipe? oil the radiator water??

machine shop did the valve job? did they put new valve stem seals in the head?

putting a different weight of oil in there isn't going to fix this.

 

I can see a slight blue tint to the exhaust, so the engine must bee burning oil. I just had a valve job done, new seals and gaskets so I know that oil isn't leaking anywhere. Would Alemite CD-2 be a possible fix to excessive burning of oil?

 

valve stem seals keep oil out of the combustion chamber, they aren't for stopping visible external leaks.

a shop did the head replacement work? i would take it back to them and complain about 4 quarts of oil disappearing in 300 miles.

 

I think the person who did that head forget to put valve seals in place. I'm wondering what else he did not do? Before you pop the head off run a compression check just to see if you have a leaking valve.

Anyway It looks like that head is coming back off so it can be done corectly the second time around.