1990 K-1500 with 350 oil consumption questions

"Michael Herron" wrote: > I have a 1990 Chev K1500 4x4 with a 350 in it with 138,000 > miles. It goes > through a quart of oil every 200 miles ( that's a LOT!). It's > been that way > for a few years now. No oil leaks, no blue smoke except on > engine start. It > runs quite well, no plug fouling or missing. I figure it is > either the valve > oil seals, valve guides or both. > Has anyone else had experience with this problem? Did you find > a solution > for it? Does anyone have enough experience with working on a > 350 to suggest > if the problem is usually the guides, valve oil seals or > both? Is it > practical to R and R the heads on an engine with 138K on it or > is that > asking for new problems? > Any comments or suggestions much appreciated. Mike H. Seattle.

GM had a lot of problem with valve guide seals in those model years and my 89 burb was recalled when it was a few years old for a valve seal upgrade. With a few proper tools, they are not hard to change at all and you can do them all in a 2 to 4 hours ( or less depending on how fast you work)

Mike I recently have gone through the same thing with my 1991 C1500. I didn't think it was burning oil out the tail pipe either until one calm, warm day with very little breeze when I had to get into the throttle pretty heavy and finally saw the smoke in the mirrors. A dry then a wet compression test showed I had one bad cylinder and that it was rings. I have since run it for another 3 years but after a recent tranny melt-down decided to yank both out of the truck. The block is at the local engine machine shop right now. I have yet to send out the tranny, but know where it will be going. Sounds like you're in for a rebuilt. Hopefully your truck is in good shape too, so that you might feel it's worth it. I figure 2-3000 Cdn is way cheaper than 5 more years of payments. Good luck. Kevin

I disaggree, I would check valve gudie seal because if they have never been changed they are know to do this. GM redesigned them around 91 or so and there was a TSB on it too.