Water in Catch Can

[georgeb]

Hoping to milk a few more miles out of my tired '93 with excessive blow-by I rigged up an unrestricted catch can arrangement with the intention of dumping the collected oil back into the motor. But the bottle looks like it's mostly water, probably having something to do with the steam that pours out of the hose when it is cold. Is this motor toast?.

[blkfordsedan]

That's probably the moisture from combustion. You won't want to pour anything that ends up in the catch can back into the motor...it will be pretty nasty. When the blowby gets bad, the oil gets contaminated with the combustion gasses and moisture. Engine wear will increase as a result, so keep this in mind if you plan on rebuilding the engine. Things like the rocker arms and shafts will deteriorate fast. A simple rebuild with rings and bearings can turn into a complete overhaul with multiple component replacement and machine work. Keep an eye on the oil and change it if it starts to get nasty and smell funny.

[jjk1224]

Water in Catch Can

It doesn't take much to re-ring and install new bearings on these engines in car. As long as you don't have major cylinder wall damage that is.

[georgeb]

Today it smoked out of the bottle for an entire 50-mile trip. I thought I might get stopped. So I eliminated the bottle and ran it to the original fitting on the intake tube after enlarging the orifice. The oil has to climb about 4 inches before it drops off. Hopefully that keeps some of the oil out of the tube. There was about a half pint in the bottle after 200 miles. It was mostly oil after all. Looks terminal.