'94 Festiva with 50K miles getting blowby?

[JManley]

'94 Festiva with 50K miles getting blowby?

I got a '94 Festiva about a year and a half ago from the original owner. It had 80,000 miles on the odometer, but I was told that 50k of that was axle only, as it was towed behind their camper and only used on vacations. I put another 20k on it, bringing the odometer up to 100,000, which means there's only 50k miles on the engine. I drove it from Los Angeles to San Diego and back recently, and it blew a valve cover gasket. I came to realize this the day after I got back because it had a really rough idle when I took it to the corner store. I popped the hood, and found oil all over the engine and engine bay. I replaced the gasket, and everything was fine for a few days. Then the idle slowly starting getting rough again over the next week or two, and it finally got to a point where it would sputter and want to stall while in idle with the headlights on. Got under the hood, and noticed oil buildup on the intake system, which I had cleaned when replacing the gasket. Disconnected the hoses and found oil in them. I also found smoke coming from the dipstick tube after only a few minutes of operation. I'm guessing something happened with the rings while driving on an engine spilling out all of its oil.

My question is, is there ANY possibility that it could be something else, BEFORE I decide to tear the engine apart? It has such low mileage, I'm debating if it would be worth doing a rebuild. Anyone with a similar experience know the likeliness that I will only have to replace rings, and not hone or bore the cylinder walls?

[Eaglefreek]

Could be stuck rings due to little use. I would try to loosen the the rings with some fluid like Marvel Mystery oil or Seafoam down the spark plug holes before tearing it apart. But as bad as your symptoms sound, it could be a broken ring or rings.

[WmWatt]

Can you check the compression? Wet and dry to see if the rings are worn. There are special oils and additives for older worn engines but as Eagle suggests a good cleaning would be good first. There are various products to add to the oil or fuel. I've used the one you pour into the crankcase and let the engine idle for 5min just before an oil change. I think that one comes under the "top end cleaner" category for cleaning valves.

[ryanprins13]

How low did it get on oil before you topped it up?

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[ricko1966]

What i do in this situation is remove the plugs remove the oil cap remove the intake tube between the throttle body and airflow meter remove the dist cap. rotate the engine with a breaker bar until your dist rotor is pointing at the number one plug wire, put a shop towel in the exhaust pipe,over the oil cap opening and over the throttle body wedge the throttle open, wedge the breaker bar so the crank can't move and pressurize number 1 with compressed air,watch your rags,did the oil cap rag blow off?Broken rings ,or ring lands or a burn't piston,Did the rag blow off the throttle body?Burnt or stuck intake valve.Did the rag blow out of the exhaust,burnt or stuck exhaust valve Repeat on the other cylinders rotate engine to point rotor at each cyls plug wire,this insures you are at or close to tdc on that cyl with both valves closed. I'll bet you are going to find that 1 cylinder is causing the problem,usually a burn't piston from an intake leak or broken ring lands. If I am right the fix is a set of rings a set of rod bearings,a piston,a head gasket and a pan gasket. I 've done this a bizzilion times,If you end up going rings rod brgs and a piston,with engine still in the car HMB I'll give you all the little tips and tricks on how to prep the cylinders,pistons and crank,and keep the debris out of the engine.Honing the cyls is NBD if you take the right precautions.

'94 Festiva with 50K miles getting blowby?

I got a '94 Festiva about a year and a half ago from the original owner. It had 80,000 miles on the odometer, but I was told that 50k of that was axle only, as it was towed behind their camper and only used on vacations. I put another 20k on it, bringing the odometer up to 100,000, which means there's only 50k miles on the engine. I drove it from Los Angeles to San Diego and back recently, and it blew a valve cover gasket. I came to realize this the day after I got back because it had a really rough idle when I took it to the corner store. I popped the hood, and found oil all over the engine and engine bay. I replaced the gasket, and everything was fine for a few days. Then the idle slowly starting getting rough again over the next week or two, and it finally got to a point where it would sputter and want to stall while in idle with the headlights on. Got under the hood, and noticed oil buildup on the intake system, which I had cleaned when replacing the gasket. Disconnected the hoses and found oil in them. I also found smoke coming from the dipstick tube after only a few minutes of operation. I'm guessing something happened with the rings while driving on an engine spilling out all of its oil.

My question is, is there ANY possibility that it could be something else, BEFORE I decide to tear the engine apart? It has such low mileage, I'm debating if it would be worth doing a rebuild. Anyone with a similar experience know the likeliness that I will only have to replace rings, and not hone or bore the cylinder walls?

[JManley]

ryanprins13: There was just a small amount of oil on the tip of the dipstick. It's a 3.4Q block, and I had to put in 3 quarts. I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for 4 hours going there. Started to overheat about 30 minutes away from San Diego. I stopped at a rest area for 30 minutes to cool down, and then continued on. I think when it overheated is when the gasket ruptured. The drive home was at night. It was cool out, and I was doing 80 the whole way. Temperature gauge was right in the middle like normal. I think it lost all of the oil on the trip back at the higher RPMs, but didn't overheat as far as the temperature gauge was reading.

[JManley]

ricko1966: Thanks, I will definitely try that!

[JManley]

Oops... That should read '93 Festiva. My other car is a '94 Subaru Legacy AWD Wagon.

[ryanprins13]

Yeah, it probably leaked enough out of the valve cover gasket to get low enough on oil to starve the pump a little and you ran dry or intermittantly of oil as it sloshed around. Thats a likely reason for the blowby now.

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