I am not suprised that shes going through a lot of oil, but I cant beleive this much. I do have a lot of miles 275,000, but it doesnt smoke at all. I just had an emissions test and it passed very well, almost off the charts clean. As far as leaking it out of the rear main seal, i dont really think so. It doesnt leave a puddle of oil in the driveway or anything. When I come out I may see a couple of drops. I am having to put in at almost 2 quarts every 1000 miles. Right now I am using 10W-30 Castrol GTX oil, but I think Im going to switch to either 20w oil or straight weight oil. Would the extra friction from such a heavy oil damage an already worn engine? I just wanted to see what you guys thought ..any suggestions???

Also, those of you with the 2nd gen 4runners. Does your oil pressure guage drop down very low at stoplights also? When reving back up where does your oil pressure top out at relative to the 2 marks on the guage?
Looks like this---------> L l l l H <----on the guage
Im talking about these 2 marks ^ ^ by the way

My pressure doesn't quite reach the middle one, is this ok?

 

my makeshift oil pressure guage doesn't look right up there,but you guys know what Im talking about. Disreguard my crappy drawing.

 

My 2nd gen had exactly the same oil pressure as yours, with 225,000 km on it. And I went through about 1 litre every 1000 km in the city, and up to 2 litres with highway driving.

If you're not leaking it out then it must be burning some. I know my valve seals leaked a bit, I had a bit of blue smoke when first starting up when cold. With the mileage you have I would think the rings must be letting some oil by, and probably the valve seals as well.

Try switching to 10W40, or even 20W50. I don't think the thicker oil will harm your engine. You could also try the oils for higher mileage engines, some people have had good results with them.

Keep in mind though none of those ideas are going to eliminate oil burning, the only real solution is a rebuild.

 

Mine definitely does the oil pressure gauge dance, but it doesn't appear to be burning anything. I've put about 800 miles on it since I bought it last month, so we shall see....

 

How about valve cover gaskets? Oil pan gaskets? Those are common places for oil to leak, and I just replaced those in mine. The valve covers were leaking BAD.

 

I just replaced the valve cover gasket on mine this weekend, only the driver side one. When oil leaked out of it it landed on the exhaust and smoked badly. Looked like my engine was on fire.