Oil has vanished...

[SpecM]

seriously dude, oil can go in two places: and internal leak (burning) or an external leak. You have one or the other, or both, period

[norcalE30]

check the front of the head behind the cam gear for leaks. cam seal could do that, but all that oil in a couple months, i think you have some bad rings

[rThor432]

Finding the leak shouldnt be this difficult.

Load the car up (driving in gear) and romp on it. You or a friend need to watch the drivers side rear of the vehicle for blue smoke.

Also, get a flashlight and check the motor for any excessively wet areas. if your engine (like 99.998% of board members :o) is covered in filthy grime, clean it up first with solvent. Then keep an eye out for any excessively wet areas that present themselves.

Valve cover gaskets, rocker plugs, cam seals, and the oil pan gasket are common causes of leaks on these motors. The rear main seal can cause a huge mess as well. I've seen oil cooler lines fail also, and those will leak pretty well.

[Danny]

Downshift into somewhat high rpms while going down a hill and let go off the gas pedal.

[Moto-Mucci]

Finding the leak shouldnt be this difficult.

Load the car up (driving in gear) and romp on it. You or a friend need to watch the drivers side rear of the vehicle for blue smoke.

Also, get a flashlight and check the motor for any excessively wet areas. if your engine (like 99.998% of board members :o) is covered in filthy grime, clean it up first with solvent. Then keep an eye out for any excessively wet areas that present themselves.

Valve cover gaskets, rocker plugs, cam seals, and the oil pan gasket are common causes of leaks on these motors. The rear main seal can cause a huge mess as well. I've seen oil cooler lines fail also, and those will leak pretty well.

That's because I haven't actually checked for it yet. I'm just asking for the possible problem areas on these cars. I'm going to bring it to the garage now to get it up.

Is it even worth putting synthetics in it if it's just going to dump a quart every couple months? (post fixing whatever's leaking)

[Liam]

Any external leak that would cause you to go through oil will make a huge mess.

1qt in about 1000 mi is to be expected if you drive hard.


What engine?

M20 needs 20w50 oil if you are using something like 5w30 it will suck it right up and burn it ( 5 or 10w* is not good for the old M20 cams and rockers either).

M42 needs 10w* not as susceptible to eating themselves with 5w* because it has more advanced internals but the breather system is still a bit crude.

Or it's just worn out,
Or possibly the oil control rings are mucked up, synthetic oil is less likely to leave the kind of deposits that cause this. If everything else is okay try flushing the engine ( I would recommend BG Petrospecs engine flush but I don't think it is sold OTC)

[blunttech]

That's because I haven't actually checked for it yet. I'm just asking for the possible problem areas on these cars. I'm going to bring it to the garage now to get it up.

Is it even worth putting synthetics in it if it's just going to dump a quart every couple months? (post fixing whatever's leaking)

a car that uses a quart of oil a month isnt shit. run dino oil if you like. it will help consumption a bit. just watch your oil level until you get a feel for when you need to add a quart. no big deal. its an old car and anything less than a rebuild isnt going to help. on an old car 2 months between checking oil isnt a good thing.

[Farbin Kaiber]

( I would recommend BG Petrospecs engine flush but I don't think it is sold OTC)

I'm a big fan of BG Stuff too... Do you know Mike V. or John C.?

[silversleeper]

Are you sure you put it in the right hole? :)

[Adrian_Visser]

valve stem seals and valve guides wear out alot more than piston rings do. Like Danny says down shifting while going down a hill and using full engine braking will help to check if this is your problem, also if the car puffs blue smoke on startup you can usually guess at worn valve stem oil seals. These are alot easier to replace than piston rings btw. If you suspect rings do a compression test record numbers than do it again but squirt some oil ( a tbsp or two ) into the cylinder if the numbers go up you can bet your rings are leaking.

you could easily be burning that much oil and not notice, it my eta went through about 3 quarts a month and you could never smell it burning or see blue smoke from the tail pipe just keep that in mind.

[mikeedler]

maybe you smoked a bit too much and were really high and actually forgot to put the last 2 quarts of oil in there.-- or maybe the guy that stole the centercaps off the other guys car here came and stole a few quarts of oil from your car too.

[xwill112x]

my m42 does this, i never see any blue smoke, nothing like that, and i just changed the oil pan gasket. but it's an old car, i wouldnt worry.

[Moto-Mucci]

Are you sure you put it in the right hole? :)

Yea, the one in the rear quarter panel. I'm not an idiot.

On an unrelated note, I noticed the guy at Progressive that checked my coolant level left the fucking cap off the res. I found it wedged behind my tower. I had been driving it around like this.

Worst ins. company in IL, by far. What a cluster of fuck ups.

[AndrewBird]

Why was a guy at an insurance company checking your coolant level?

[Moto-Mucci]

it's a very very long, shitty, story. to sum it up they broke my heat, saw coolant light on, checked it.