[Mk2] [Turbo] oil consumption, sooty exhaust!

[eddo]

alright guys, my 2 is using quite a lot of oil after hard driving and when started from cold sooty water/oil droplets come out of the exhuast?

anyone had this happen to them?

[paul_4xxxx]

check your oil filler cap mate, is it full of a creamy type substance??? sounds like your headgasket has gone... if you wanna be sure about it, then take it to a garage and have them do a compression test on all your cilinders

[eddo]

ooops sorry forgot to mention, head gasket has just been done 2k miles ago, and thers no mayo etc...

could it be the turbo then, theres not excessive smoke from cold, and it boosts well?

or is it valve stem seals? letting oil through?

[paul_4xxxx]

could be valve stem seals then... if it is then its still a head off job... how were the seals wen u had the headgasket done?

[eddo]

i dont know mate, it was all done at a garage, il be mad if it is the valve seal gotta do the head again! they shold of done it right first time.

is there anyway to check the valve seals without taking off the head?

cheers mate

[paul_4xxxx]

just the compression test i think, that tells you if theres a problem with the combustion chambers... if there is then you need to take the head off to see if its the valve stem seals, head gasket or piston rings or whatever... i will double check to see if theres a way to check the seals

[eddo]

ok cheers mate

[Hellboy]

or you could just top up with oil, its a old engine, of course its going to loose some oil, hell Fiat 20V turbos use 1 liter of oil every 1K miles out the box.

[paul_4xxxx]

lol... ye... you could do that, the lad who i am asking for advice for ya is a jaguar mechanic, hes got a supra that the valve stem seals went on and he just kept on driving it...

hes taken it off the road now and started a big project on the engine...

i need to know off him how he diagnosed the valve stem seals...

has the car lost much power since you noticed this???

[eddo]

lol... ye... you could do that, the lad who i am asking for advice for ya is a jaguar mechanic, hes got a supra that the valve stem seals went on and he just kept on driving it...

hes taken it off the road now and started a big project on the engine...

i need to know off him how he diagnosed the valve stem seals...

has the car lost much power since you noticed this???

cheers mate, nah the car doesnt seem to have lost any power. I had a look at the exhaust after a cold start the other day, and its deffinatly water droplets coming out the back, not oil so no idea what that could be as my car doesnt use water or overheat.

some times it smokes from a cold start and other times it barley smokes at all. it seems to burn about 100ml of oil after a nites hard driving.

[paul_4xxxx]

to be honest, i would say thet 100ml was normal after a days hard driving. considering the age of your engine... the water droplets in your exhaust might just be the water vapour produced buy the combustion process... i would say its normal... just keep an eye on it for the next few weeks... if it gets any worse, give me a shout and i will ask around for you

if it was me i wouldnt worry at all unless you had a loss of power

[eddo]

to be honest, i would say thet 100ml was normal after a days hard driving. considering the age of your engine... the water droplets in your exhaust might just be the water vapour produced buy the combustion process... i would say its normal... just keep an eye on it for the next few weeks... if it gets any worse, give me a shout and i will ask around for you

if it was me i wouldnt worry at all unless you had a loss of power

righteo, thanks a lot mate, really appriciate your help

[Ian Geary]

water vapour will be condensation I expect first thing.

sooty - do you do short journeys, or longer runs? sort trips might result in the car being on choke (or whatever fuel injection has) a lot, so loads of unburnt fuel.

but,

my car had poor compression in a cylinder due to a piston crack, and there was muchos oil: in the air pipes, out of the exhaust, out of the BOV, black smudges up the bumper, black exhaust and a blue plume of smoke from the oil filler cap when removed.

To diagnose piston failure vs. valve stem failure, you need to do a leak down test (google it).

this gives more info than a simple compression test (which is still useful however) but will need a garage to do it properly.

the hard way is to take your head off, but only after a compression test however (tester £15 from Halfords). you can't do a compression test once the head is off.

hth

Ian

[diycinema]

It's possible to change the stem seals without taking the head off, you can use compressed air injected through the spark plug socket to hold the valves in. Certain nutters have also filled the cylinder with string and then pulled it out afterwards!

[simmo490]

filling cylnders with nylon/cotton yarn is normal practice then moving the cylnder to TDC this is also used to lock off an engine. when finished pull it out and the engine will burn off any strands.

it sounds like you have NOTHING to worry about mate its normal to use a bit of oil and the doplets is quite normal too pending how much you use your car and the condensation.

u will notice if your valve stem seals have gone, when u start up 1st thing on a morning u will get a nice big puff of blue smoke. but thats about it. no compression test will tell you if these are gone, its just down to experience

simmo

[Razor04]

Hi my rev3 turbo has exactly the same symptoms water droplets n sooty black oil or unburnt fuel residue in the tail pipe. I think its just condensation from the exhaust sweating up from cold. The soot is the engine overfuelling Mr2 turbos are designed to run a bit rich so i'd just chill man. Unless your losing power or there's water pouring out the exhaust.