I have an 85 pickup/RV that I bought last fall. It's got about 30,000 miles on it, so it obviously sat quite a bit. Anyway, shortly after I bought it, it overheated in the mountains due to a bunch of crud that had built up in the cooling system and I burnt the head gastket. Dumb, I know, but I have my moments.

Anyway, I had the head gasket done and the head rebuilt and resurfaced at a machine shop. I'm assuming they did a good job, but who knows?

Oil consumption has gotten progressively worse, and it now uses up to a quart every 200 miles at times. I replaced the PCV valve on top of the valve cover, and I just did a compression check that showed about 165 psi across all four cylinders.

I've never seen any smoke on startup or while driving, which seems strange if the valve guides are that bad, i.e. if they just resurfaced the head and didn't do the valves as they told me. There's no evidence of oil in the coolant.

I also did the EGR test of disconnecting the vacuum hose on top and hooking up vacuum from the intake to it, and the engine died immediately.

I'm just wondering if there are any other likely culprits. Should I try some Seafoam in it, or are there other places the oil might be getting sucked into the engine? There's no evidence of leaks, other than a little oozing here and there. No drips on the ground at all.

The engine runs like a top, and I'm trying to talk myself into it not being the valve guides and another head rebuild. It just seems weird it would leak that much oil past the guides and I wouldn't see any smoke.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

If you're burning it your plugs must be getting fouled, how do they look?
and this may seem weird but do you have power brakes? how well are they working?

By pickup/RV do you mean that it's a 4runner?

 

Right, I should have mentioned the plugs. When I pulled them yesterday, they were a little sooty on the tip, but the rest was tan like they should be. I idled the engine to warm it up for the compression test first, so I attributed the soot to that. There weren't oily at all.

It does have power brakes, and they're spongy, even though I recently bled them. It helped a bit, but they're still spongy. What might that mean? The oil is getting sucked into the vacuum booster or something?

 

Does anybody else have any ideas on this, or know what the brake issue might have to do with it? Thanks.

 

Same thing....my rebuilt 22R has maybe 25K on it now and from day 1 after the rebuild I have to put about a quart in every 2 weeks. Only puffs out oil smoke first thing in the AM which leads me to assume that its valve guides.

 

oh and I have a seal out which accounts for most of the oil loss but as for burning it only does it in the AM for about 10 seconds.

 

Yeah, that's the weird thing with mine. I've got no leaks and I don't see any smoke, on start up or otherwise. No oil on the plugs either. I don't see how I can be burning that much oil without seeing those symptoms.

 

i would try to further investigate for any leaks if there is no smoke. just because there isnt a quart of oil in your driveway doesnt mean there isnt a leak. my 94 has a pretty bad oil pan leak, which is pretty common for any car of that age without it ever being replaced, but by looking at the ground beneath it you wouldnt suspect a thing. in my case the oil is leaking and is either collecting around the pan's edge, on the skid plate, crossmember, and other suspension parts and than collects dirt and dust from the road making like a paste over time.