96 civic burning oil!!!
28-Oct-2011, 02:03 PM
#1
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96 civic burning oil!!!
I have a 96 Civic lx non vtec (ole' lady's mother's car). I will start from the beginning... I was contracted to replace valve seals (smokes only on start up)even though I told her the valve seals were not the problem. On my way to the parts house it started sputtering and the cel was flashing, so I get it back to the shop to trace down the misfire. I do a spark check and when I get to #3 cyl the spark plug was covered in oil so I cleaned all the plugs and re-installed and of course it was chugging smoke... Now I do a compression test and no compression on #3 cyl, so I pull the head off and it was missing a chunk out of one of the valves. I have since had the head rebuilt and re-installed with new head gasket and now have good compression on all cylinders(145-150psi) and now the car still smokes badly (oil/blue smoke)( until the car has been driving for about 10-15min) and is going through oil like crazy and it idles either really low, really high or it is sporadic. Any help will be greatly appreciated... Thank you in advance!!!
28-Oct-2011, 07:13 PM
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So you rebuilt the head, but did you bother checking for ring ridge or look into piston rings? As said above it seems odd that compression is low. And btw, if you are going to do a test, atleast have tools that read accurately. Try a wet compression test. I dont really see another reason for oil to burn.
28-Oct-2011, 07:46 PM
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I am going to do a wet test tomorrow. There are no ridges or damage of any kind in the cylinders. All the signs of burning oil are not there that is what is driving me nuts! Hell my spark plugs dont even show signs of oil and with how bad it is smoking/using oil they should be fouled.
30-Oct-2011, 07:29 PM
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Well so far still no answers. No more than 10% leakdown in all cylinders. This just doesnt make sence. I am going to throw a pcv valve in it for $h¡ts and gigs. The old one is bad so i figured it cant hurt...
31-Oct-2011, 12:01 AM
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But of course no luck with the pcv... I bought a new compression tester and I have 160-180 psi of compression across the board. When I opened the throttle body I did notice a little bit of oil in the intake. I also have some moisture in the exhaust, I can't smell antifreeze though and there is no white smoke also no bubbles whatsoever in the radiator when I did the leakdown test on any cylinder. I am pulling my hair out on this one!!! Any suggestions or ideas will be greatly appreciated...
07-Nov-2011, 11:11 PM
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Seems like ur getting oil blow by - which is caused by worn out piston rings
Blue smoke through the exhaust means that the engine is burning oil which is getting through the piston rings
I find it weird that u don't find and oil on the spark plugs
How many kms on the engine - hell I'd just throw in another sohc - their cheap and would take u a couple hrs to install
Blue smoke through the exhaust means that the engine is burning oil which is getting through the piston rings
I find it weird that u don't find and oil on the spark plugs
How many kms on the engine - hell I'd just throw in another sohc - their cheap and would take u a couple hrs to install
08-Nov-2011, 10:28 AM
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When you rebuilt the head did you replace ALL the valve seals with new ones? (especially the exhaust side?)
Despite the somewhat low compression, I doubt he is getting THAT much blow-by. I suspect something else. Especially if leak down only showed 10% drop. If it's valve seals, a leak down test will not show this because the vlaves are closed for leak down...
What kind of head gasket did you use? (what material?)
To those who say "it's a honda, they all burn oil". You are wrong. Many engines from many different manufacturers burn oil as well when they get older and have hundreds of thousands of kms on them. Parts wear out and they start to leak. Any engine that gets the snot revved out of them on a regular basis, their rings and valve seals take the punishment, so they start buring oil. A lot of higher-mileage civics are owned and abused by many young males and that is what happens. Burning oil has nothing to do with who manufactures the engine. My 89 chev pickup with 4.3L V6 had only 100k on it and it burned oil. Every so often I see old and relatively newer cars with blue smoke out the exhaust. Most of them are not hondas.
Despite the somewhat low compression, I doubt he is getting THAT much blow-by. I suspect something else. Especially if leak down only showed 10% drop. If it's valve seals, a leak down test will not show this because the vlaves are closed for leak down...
What kind of head gasket did you use? (what material?)
To those who say "it's a honda, they all burn oil". You are wrong. Many engines from many different manufacturers burn oil as well when they get older and have hundreds of thousands of kms on them. Parts wear out and they start to leak. Any engine that gets the snot revved out of them on a regular basis, their rings and valve seals take the punishment, so they start buring oil. A lot of higher-mileage civics are owned and abused by many young males and that is what happens. Burning oil has nothing to do with who manufactures the engine. My 89 chev pickup with 4.3L V6 had only 100k on it and it burned oil. Every so often I see old and relatively newer cars with blue smoke out the exhaust. Most of them are not hondas.
Last edited by MPR; 08-Nov-2011 at 10:38 AM.
08-Nov-2011, 02:28 PM
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The car has 125,000 miles on it. I can only assume that the machine shop that did the head job replaced the exhaust side valve seals, the ones I replaced on the #2 intake were brand new. The reason I changed them on the intake side is I can see oil in the intake after the car cools down and it appeared that it was coming from the #2 intake runner when I looked in the throttle body. Also it started smoking like crazy right before I took the head off to get machined and the valve replaced. My concern is that there is a gash in the bottom of the #3 cylinder (the cylinder that the intake valve broke in), thus passing the leak down test. I am trying to get my hands on a bore scope so I can further inspect my theory.
08-Nov-2011, 03:13 PM
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The car has 125,000 miles on it. I can only assume that the machine shop that did the head job replaced the exhaust side valve seals, the ones I replaced on the #2 intake were brand new. The reason I changed them on the intake side is I can see oil in the intake after the car cools down and it appeared that it was coming from the #2 intake runner when I looked in the throttle body. Also it started smoking like crazy right before I took the head off to get machined and the valve replaced. My concern is that there is a gash in the bottom of the #3 cylinder (the cylinder that the intake valve broke in), thus passing the leak down test. I am trying to get my hands on a bore scope so I can further inspect my theory.
Check the valve cover ventilation. Make sure all the oil passeges from the head down through the block are not clogged and are allowing oil to easily flow back down to the pan.
Last edited by MPR; 08-Nov-2011 at 03:16 PM.
08-Nov-2011, 08:29 PM
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When i had the head off there was no damage whatsoever to any of the cylinders. The head was not milled but it was checked for flatness and was good. The oil passages appear to be clear. Even with a bit of blowby this doesn't explain oil pooling in the intake...
