Excessive oil useage

[steve8895]

Hi All,
just a quick question, i havejust replace new head gasket and all the trimmings and car runs great. Allthough previously engine would use quite a bit of oil (approx 1 litre every 200 miles) When I replace the head gasket and seals I found that the oil seals on the valves for hammered and thought that the new ones would sort the oil consumption out.
It hasn,t changed one bit so I can only presume that it is coming up around the pistons.My colleague is very knowledgable about Frontera engines and seems to agree that this is the problem and that I should use something like Holts Piston seal. Does anyone have any experience of using this ? also my MOT due Wed so I am now panicking that it could fail if I do this after or before. Any opinions or advice would be great.
Cheers
Steve

[Drift]

Any seal rejuvinator will take a few hundred miles to work and they wont work if the seals have deteriorated to much.

[Rifleman]

Have the engine runnning and remove the oil filler cap. If there are lots of fumes coming out the rocker cover, the piston rings are knackered.

[steve8895]

Yer removed oil filler and no fumes coming out.
Even down breather to air intake from cam shaft cover there is next to nothing there.
Steve

[Rifleman]

Are you sure there are no leaks anywhere bud? Make sure you have checked everywhere.
It doesnt sound like you are burning it.

[steve8895]

yep bone dry all over, Like I say we thought it had to be the valve seals as these were knackered and they had not been changed for the previous owner when they did the botch repair.
I changed every seal when I did head gsaket and even though I do say so myself I did a pucker job this time.
strange cos when car starts it leaves dirty black patch on floor from exhaust then no smoke at all. We wondered if the fact that it has had a stainless exhaust fitted and that
the crap is still coming out from all the previous oil that went down the valve seals.
Are well MOT day tomorrow,presume they will let me know emisions and I can see what that indicates.
Regards
Steve

[Rifleman]

Let us know how it goes Steve. Good luck.

[steve8895]

Hi All,
Well the MOT was a PASS !
Just a bit of play in the steering adjustment which is easily fixed and they said they would let it through on an adviser.
Emissions were #### and they said possible cause was oil which was expected to some degree. They asked had I changed valve seals as that was suspect.
Knowing I have done the valve seals still frustrates me (car mileage 70K). I am wondering is it oil quality again. Piston rings/Bore not worn so wondered if it was that, as if I remember rightly noticed it after first oil change but not sure. I am lookin at maybe seeing how long the oil stays before getting to low and then changing for a good quality instead of the 10w/40 CARLUBE I keep getin from Europarts.
I have asked the question before but any advice on oil quality would be appreciated.
Cheers all
Regards
Steve

[tez1963]

like you say fella might be worth changing oil to a good quaility one and maybe going to a 15/40 and see if that improves the oil usage, maybe even get ya oil from vauxhall themselves and then at least ya know that ya putting in whats susposed to be in it

[Sir-Doris]

There is a breather hose or 2 from the top of the rocker cover that connect with the inlet manifold/throttle body, oil can get sucked through these into the combustion chamber. Whether or not enough could be sucked through to fail the emissions is doubtful as it is designed that way but its worth checking perhaps.

Here is a pic from mine, yours will be similar:


What I did was fit a couple of kettle descalers into the pipe, this stopped oil from being sucked into the inlet manifold.



I reckon the amount of oil being sucked through was minimal but it may vary from vehicle to vehicle. As a result the throttle butterfly stays clean and the truck doesnt use oil. The effect is somewhat similar to an oil catchment tank.

[bobbinsjob]

yes phil, the same was happening to Angelina, hence the litre or 2 of oil resting in the bottom of the intercooler and explaining the coke buildup in the inlet manifold and crudded up EGR valve