Oil streaming from muffler. How?

[coachkadis]

Attatching 2 pics showing weep hole at the bottom of the muffler where oil was streaming from and the oil it deposited. 2nd pic shows the oil that came out of the hole. Car ran 3 weeks ago and was I running it some to keep fuel from settling. I know it smokes some after sitting for a while but I was really surprised to see what came out of the muffler. The oil was changed within 1 hour before this event. It looks like maybe the oil crept past the rings while sitting but not sure how it would have gotten all the way to the muffler. The compression readings are low, 80 to 90 psi from the cylinders, this being a stock 2.7 with 8.5 comp ratio. It does have ssi headers but for the life of me I am not sure how the oil in a liquid state made it that far into the exhaust system. Any ideas?

[Jeff Alton]

The engine likely was overfilled with oil. Level checking was not done correctly.

Cheers

[targa72e]

Might also just be water mixed with a lot of soot. Muffler is not supposed to have holes there, its rusted out because of condensation over time. You get tons of water when burning gasoline (hence the white smoke coming out the tail pipes of cars in winter)

john

[coachkadis]

Thanks for the inputs. Definitely not overfilled as I let it warm up and checked on the stick although that was my first thought as well. Could be soot and water although the muffler is fairly new. Will pull it to check. Thanks to you both

[PeteKz]

Probably not related, given your compression is fairly close on all cylinders, but test your compression gauge. 80-90 psi is too low, even for CR=8.5. That should be in the 130 range. Or do you live at high altitude?

[eastbay]

If you really want to know, pull the heat exchangers and see which cylinder(s) are puking oil.

[pmax]

Does it smell like oil or soot ?

[stownsen914]

If the car sat for a while, it can happen with 911s that oil migrates from the tank to the engine until the level equilibrates. When the level in the engine rises, it can get into the cylinders and trickle out of an exhaust valve into the header and get into the muffler.

[coachkadis]

Sorry. Was in Vegas for 4 days. Does not smell like soot. Only sat for 3 weeks so I do not think that was long enough for that result. Don't live at high altitude. Going to warm ot up and do a leak down test then pull the headers afterwards and see whats up. Thanks for the feedback.

[Yinkus]

If the engine sat after an oil change and your compression is already low (80–90 psi), it’s likely oil seeped past the rings and valve guides and pooled in the exhaust.