Oil consumption explanation?
 

Hi,

Some thoughts around cleaning the oil breather hose to reduce oil consumption before pulling the engine and spending a lot of money.

Last summer I wanted to go through my engine because I had to top it of with oil quite often, in my opinion. I put in 1 qt perhaps every 600-700 miles. Sorry, I did not do it more scientifically and record the miles. I merely checked the oil every other time I had gone for a drive. The engine seemed to stabilize on a 1/4 -1/3 level.

I could not explain where the oil was going. I'm not an experienced mechanic by any means. The one thing I could easily determine from the lack of stains on my garage floor was that it was not seeping through the engine block/cylinders at a rate where the engine was dripping oil. A bit sweaty, yes.
I concluded with a rat poison theory, that if its bleeding a little bit in a lot of places it will eventually bleed to death.

Anyway, I wanted to improve this by changing front and back crank case seals, oil thermostat o-ring and the oil cooler seals. The oil breather cover gasket was bought, however decided to leave it. (to many items to remove compared to little evidence of leaking)

During the process I discovered that the oil breather hose was filled with mayonnaise! or whipped up oil and condensation, very much restricting the airflow from the crank case to the oil tank. The hose was cleaned using a small rag and a cord to pull it through and everything was put back together.
560 miles later, the oil level is steady both on the gauge and dip stick. I believe the most effective of these changes was the cleaning of the breather hose and that this accounted for most of the cars oil consumption at the time. The pressure increase resulting from this restricted crank case ventilation probably forced oil to enter past the piston rings and disappeared in the combustion cycle. There was no excess smoke when driving and no blue smoke on start up. Some white smoke yes, however that should be due to condensation.

Any thoughts or similar experience? Hope this could be useful for anyone who is considering changing seals etc without any prominent leaks. It may also be a no brainer to some of you out there:)


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1395323909.jpg

That is a good one to add to the memory bank. Especially since the SC is a "sealed" system. Thanks for sharing!