@irlandes–“Actually, I said it used a quart every 30 miles only because it used a quart every 30 miles”.
I believe you. Heavy oil consumption was not uncommon back in those days. If your 1953 Chevrolet had the splash lubricated engine (the 1953 Chevrolet with the manual transmission had a splash lubricated engine with babbitt bearings–the 1953 Chevrolet with the PowerGlide automatic had full pressure oiling), these engines were known for leaking main bearing seals.
It’s difficult to say what direction to go with this without knowing numbers. The stickler is the first scenario because that’s the one in which I mentioned the compression rings being good and the oil wiper ring being stuck in the ring land, or lands as the case may be.
That can be a pretty expensive fishing expedition that should not be undertaken unless all other options are exhausted.
Regarding that scenario, I was involved with a Subaru some years ago that burned 1 quart of oil per 10 miles and that is not a typo. Three plugs were burning perfecty normal and 1 was oil fouled. Compression tests (3 of them with different gauges) showed that all 4 cylinders were at 185 PSI with no variation between any of them. So in this case you have an oil puking cylinder with the same compression as the 3 that use no oil at all. In this case the problem was due to an odd cylinder wall glazing with the cause of that never really being determined.
I might add that in the pic of the spark plugs they all appear to have oil on the lower extremities of the threads and that can point to a ring problem in most cases.
At this point I would run the compression test and go from there.
Apparently, the Chevrolet has much better oil mileage (in fact 3 times better) than the Subaru.
The stickler is the first scenario because that’s the one in which I mentioned the compression
rings being good and the oil wiper ring being stuck in the ring land, or lands as the case
may be.
If that’s the case, there are a variety of cleaning fixes to try. You can spend many hours on the net reading about all of them. Each has been heavily discussed and debated with lots of varying opinions.
Two that I like are:
1: Fill the engine to the brim with kerosene, turn it over manually (with a breaker bar) for a few strokes, and then let it sit for a week. Drain, and do a few back-to-back oil changes.
2: Pour a quart of kerosene in the crankcase, drive for 100 miles, then change the oil.
I’ve only used the second one, albeit years ago. Both of the above should be accompanied with pulling the oil pan off and cleaning the intake screen to the oil pump.
It never fails to impress me at how great the posters are on this board . . . great suggestions from all, good job folks! After the compression test and servicing the PCV system, change the oil and install new plugs and drive it awhile then post back with your results . . . oil use, drippage, compression figures, mpg, smoke, and maybe there is something more these folks can suggest. Last resort for me would be adding Restore and a little thicker oil . . say 20W50. I used Restore once on an old engine and it did reduce the oil use. Good luck! Rocketman
I’ve got sludge!!!
So I pulled the front valve cover today and it wasn’t pretty. Sludge all over the place. I cleaned the valve cover the best I could and spooned out as much sludge from the engine as I could. The good news is the oil drain passages looked clear. So the question is did the sludge cause damage beyond repair?
From the responses I’ve gotten here and what I’ve read elsewhere it sounds like my options are to clean the engine and if that doesn’t work it’s a rebuild/replacement. I’ve dumped a quart of kerosene in and will drive it a bit and change the oil to see if that helps. Is there any other option for me at this point?
One more bit of information - I mentioned before that there is a lot of smoke on startup. Occasionally, however, it will start up with no smoke. After sitting since about 4pm yesterday it started up this morning at 9am with little to no smoke. Don’t know if it means anything but thought it was worth mentioning.
One last question - what does servicing the PCV system involve? Change the PCV valve and what else?
If you have that much sludge, and you’ve decided to run with a quart of kerosene to help clean the oil rings, make sure you drop your oil pan and clean the pickup screen to your oil pump when you change your oil. If you don’t, and if your kerosene “worked”, then your pickup screen will have lots of crud on it that needs to be removed - so oil can get into the oil pump.
Other than replacing the PCV valve, just make sure any hose are clear and unobstructed.
That looks like coked oil and is likely the cause of any potential frozen rings. The kerosene trick is an option but don’t hold your breath while waiting for positive results. Best of luck anyway.
Good luck . . . what a mess! You have little to lose at this point, but as ok 4450 said . . . “don’t hold your breath”. The kerosene will cause the sludge to break loose, but it’s gotta go someplace. Where? Hopefully you’ll change the oil/filter enough to get rid of it, but (no offense) it doesn’t sound like you’re a stickler about keeping up on oil changes and maintenance. I would start looking for another engine from a salvage yard. Good luck! Rocketman
You do have a lot of sludge, and while many will blame you, this actually was a common problem with these engines. Toyota even has a secret warranty on this series of engines, but at 108k miles, I don’t know how much help they will offer.
Using kerosene as a flush is not the way to attack this problem. The sludge must be mechanically removed from the head using scrappers and brushes. You can use kerosene as a solvent, that is ok. You need to make sure that the sludge is not creating oil dams around the valves. Once all that sludge is removed, and the drains are clear, your oil consumption should be dramatically reduced. You don’t have enough miles on this engine to indicate bad rings. The oil consumption is from oil pooling around the valve stems, not bad rings. This is a tedious job, but it should work.
I fully agree with OK4450 about the compression test, but it can fool you. I once had a 64 Rambler that was burning oil at 50 miles/qt, the compression tested at 180 per cylinder, but the plugs would oil foul every week and when I pulled the pistons, the only thing left of the rings was glitter. Carbon was literally acting as my rings.
One of your plugs looks like it has been exposed to ethylene glycol antifreeze. It had that look of crystals, like salt on the tips. I would watch the coolant consumption and if it starts to increase, then you probably have a breached head gasket.
If the de-sludging proves successful, the head gasket may also last for many years, but I think I would look into one of those head gasket sealers that you add to your coolant. Since the rate of leakage is very low right now, that would increase the odds of the sealer actually working. You could get another 100k out of this engine yet, but going forward, I would use 10w30 oil as it is less prone to sludging than 5w30 and change it every 5k miles or less.
rocketman - I am usually pretty good about oil changes and maintenance. The time I missed one was in the middle of a job loss and move halfway across the country so I kinda had other things on my mind. Other than that I’ve changed the oil every 3-5k miles.
keith - I’ve looked into the Toyota “oil gel” settlement and my van is outside the covered range; plus it only applies within 8 years of original purchase so I’m out of luck there. Is it enough to just remove the valve covers and give everything a thorough cleaning from the top or do I need to remove the heads? I consider myself pretty competent (especially with a service manual in hand) and am confident I could do it, I’m just not sure I am ready to invest the time and energy required. If I could find a mechanic that would do it for me what do you think it would cost? Is it pretty much the same amount of labor as replacing the head gasket plus the added cleaning? Could it be done for under $2000?
The kerosene in the oil won’t clean the heavy chunks of sludge. Though it will help to free up stuck/plugged/coke’d oil control rings. If the valve covers looked the way they did, then the oil control rings are very likely plugged.
I’m pretty certain the Toyota “oil gel” problem was fixed by 2003, which is what the OP has. IIRC, 2002 was the last year for the problem engines.
The OP said he used 1 quart of kerosene. I don’t remember if we used to use a higher concentration, (though at this point I’d be nervous about using more). We used to have the customers drive for 200 miles, then come back to drain the oil, change the filer, and drop the pan to clean the intake screen.
The place I worked at when I was 20 used to do this often. And more often than not, it worked.
I don’t know if the “coking” that occurs with today’s oil formulas is more resistant to being cleaned up with the kerosene.
You do not have to remove the head, just the valve covers. Since everything else is still in place, this becomes a very tedious job, but it doesn’t require any special skills. While doing this, you might want to plug the oil drain back holes with a large rag, a rag large enough that you won’t accidently forget that it is there. This will help keep the gunk out of the oil pan.
Look at this way, if it works, and I think there is a pretty good chance that it will, you are only out the better part of a weekend ad the cost of some solvent, brushes, plastic scrapers and a valve cover gasket set.
BTW, there is one more thing to look at, the oil pressure sending unit. These can lose their seal and they will pump out a lot of oil as a result. I did not consider this because of the smoking you mentioned. I assumed the smoke was coming out your tail pipe, but if you are smoking under the hood, then be sure to look at this as well. It could be pumping oil onto the exhaust pipe.