Burning Oil

Elle · 2009-09-11T23:39:02+00:00

1993 Civic DX, 197k miles. Purchased in July 2008, with me as secondowner. In March 2009 it started burning/losing oil at about a half-quart per 600 miles.-- Several times over the last couple of months I have thoroughlyinspected the areas of the usual seals: dizzy o-ring, front crank andcam seals, valve cover gasket, upper and lower spark plug tubegaskets, oil pan gasket, rear engine seal. No leaks in these placesthat I can see.-- Replaced PCV valve a month ago. No change.-- Coolant level is steady; no signs of a head gasket breach.-- Runs superbly, otherwise. 42 mpg averaged over 24 tanks of gassince March. I wonder whether the oil burning has upped the MPG a bit.-- Inspected the spark plugs. They do not have black oil residue onthem but all four are an odd, textured color of brown and not theusual properly combusting spark plug color.-- Replaced valve stem seals a week ago. Still consuming oil. Thoughtit might be the valve stem seals especially because driving down amountain using much engine braking yielded a report from buddies thatsmoke was blowing out of my exhaust. One buddy said it seemed blu-ish.Others were not sure.-- Yesterday discovered the o-ring on the breather chamber hadpermatex ultra-gray or similar on it, apparently as a temporary fix.Also found oil residue beneath the hose connection to the breatherchamber. I cleaned the chamber up and replaced the o-ring. IHondabonded (I know, cheap) the grommet where the PCV valve hoseconnects to the breather chamber.Questions:1. When an oil ring or the valve guides fails, is it usual for all ofthem to fail at about the same time, thus explaining why the sparkplugs are all the same color? This does not pass my common sense test,but maybe experience is a better substitute for common sense..2. My theory with the breather chamber is that it was running atatmospheric pressure or so, and this may be higher than the usualpressure, meaning the PCV valve was open more often and wider yadathan it should be. Comments?