Uh oh....

[BigFurryWhale]

So I'm driving my car home yesterday, and I start noticing that it feels really weird. At idle it's very very lumpy, feels almost as if the cylinders are firing out of order or something (don't quote me on that, but it feels really rough). This feeling continues all through the lower rpms. At anything below 2k the problem persists, and in 1st gear it didn't really go away until i was at like 3.5k or so. I pulled the dipstick when i got home and there was a little bit of a whitiah stuff on the end. I'm going to drain/check the oil asap, but I've heard that white stuff in the oil = head gasket problems? I hope it's not true.

[AdironRider]

Milky oil more than likely mean headgasket. Notice any smoke out of the exhaust? What about oil in the coolant res?

[BigFurryWhale]

Well, I was just out there again, and I pulled the oil cap, and in there it seems to be pretty clean. The coolant tank seems to be free of oil, and the dip stick had no more white stuff on it. I pulled the dipstick when the car was warm last night, and there were 2 little whitish 'clumps' on it. Could this possibly be an ignition problem? I did the rotor/distributor/plugs maybe 4-5k KM ago. ignition wires perhaps?

[trent]

pull your valve cover and look at your rockers

[BigFurryWhale]

pull your valve cover and look at your rockers

How essential is a torque wrench for this? I don't have one and no stores in my area carry a half decent one. I have a new gasket, but will i need new bolts?

[bimmer8604]

not for a valve cover. Just make sure when you put them on/take them off you do them evenly. as far as tightening them down make sure they are tight, but not over tight. The torque for them are 10-15Nm so thats not much...

kyle

[LINUS]

It's been cold recently, could just be condensation you saw. You make a lot of short trips and never get the motor up to temp and get a good long drive? If so, it's just condensation. Still do the inspection, but this time of year it's not impossible to find condensation in the oil.

[BigFurryWhale]

I usually drive 10-20 minutes at a time, but most often 10 minutes to and from school. The temp needle basically gets to halfway for maybe a minute or 2 before it get's shut off. I was also out of town for a week while the car was not being driven when it was quite cold (snow, etc). I hope it's just condensation. But what could be causing my rough idle/low rpm performance? I'm going to check rotor/dist cap later, anything else I should look at?

[LINUS]

Dunno about the other, just thought I'd offer a reason for the trace milk in the oil, since we basically live in the same climate region, and I've had it happen plenty during winters. Heck, you might have a blown gasket, just wanted to throw the other out there as a possibility. Good luck.

[BigFurryWhale]

Would a blown head gasket explain the rough idling and poor low rpm performance though? The car runs smooth as ever over about 3.5k rpm, but lump as shit under that.

[jlevie]

I usually drive 10-20 minutes at a time, but most often 10 minutes to and from school. The temp needle basically gets to halfway for maybe a minute or 2 before it get's shut off.

That's not nearly enough use to get all of the engine to equilibrium temp. The crankcase and valve covers will still be well below temp under this driving condition. In cooler weather it usually take about 30 minutes of sustained highway speed driving to reach equilibrium temp, which is what is required to keep the oil free of condensation from cylinder blow by.

If you have a gasket failure that is allowing coolant to mix with oil, there'll be noticable "milkshake" that you'll see when you drain the oil. Which is really the way to check for that.

[smooth]

if you're concerned about that residue, pull your dipstick and put a lighter flame to it. If it's water/coolant, it should crackle.

[BigFurryWhale]

It's beginning to look less and less like a head gasket. But if not a head gasket, then what is it?

[smooth]

I don't know. I'm having similar issues with disappearing coolant.
I'm wondering if it's the water pump, but I'm going to pull the head and check it for cracks and replace the HG anyway.

But as for the lumpiness, have you checked your cap and rotor? I cleaned mine up and it smoothed out the idle. Checked spark and plugs for condition?

[mmmjboner]

could be a vacuum leak.