Oil Leak and Idling

You are supposed to let it ldle forever troller. No I dont believe this.

Hi,

It happened. It is true. I can not see any oil leak may be its slow. But I checked it for three consecutive days and did not find any leak.

John

I would suspect worn valve guides / valve guide seals, restricted oil drain holes in the head (possibly due to sludge), and/or a pcv system that needs attention.

When idling the vaccum in the intake tract is high. If the drain holes from the head to the block are restricted, you could end up with a lot of oil in the valve area at the top of the engine. While the engine is idling for a long period of time a lot of this could be drawn into the engine via the worn/old/hard valve guides seals. There would not be any oil on the ground, since it was all burned in the engine.

Not sure about the heavy steering. It may be that you overheated the power steering fluid (idling for a long period leads to high underhood temperaturs).

Here is my advice:

Ed

Not a troll, ok, check the cooling system and color of water in the radiator and expansion tank, if like choclate milk its a head gasket. Look at exhaust, with that much burning you would have oil dripping out and smoke like crazy and run like crap as plugs would foul in a few hundred miles. When you check oil check just after you shut off and check after 1 hr and before its started the next day, if it goes up after a few minutes its stuck in the head from clogged oil return holes. I had a 350 like that and ran a wire doen the holes. If you realy are loosing it its going somewhere. Dye can be added and a flourescent light used.

Besides engine sludge and PCV problems, see also using:

Hi,

How much will it cost to replace valve guides seals ?

Thanks John

And you left it running at idle in the parking lot for three hours because...??

Michael

The valve stem seal replacement basically involves taking off the timing belt and cam shafts. So while everything is apart, this is typically done with the complete timing belt job (belts, 2 pulleys, water pump, oil seals, thermostat, and/or coolant hoses, valve cover gasket set. In a properly equipped shop, a 4-cyl shouldn't add more than 1 hour beyond a timing belt job.

So given $150-180 t-belt special, I'd say $300-360 labor for stem seals ($33.79 parts).

Toyota had problems with blue-smoke start ups because they used cheap intake seals. They upgraded later ones to better material but this didn't help the earlier owners. I'd go with a Fel-Pro set instead.

FEL-PRO Valve Stem Seal Set SS72810 $33.79+shipping, rockauto.com

Typically > Hi,

Hi,

I filled the oil tank with oil and drove the car atleast four times for like 30 miles. I checked the oil. It is low like in the middle of the oil stick mark. This never happened before. I can see the oil on the engine cover. I guess I have to take the car to the mechanic.

Regards,

John.

Engine cover or valve cover?

If it's coming out of the valve cover then the oil age means you need to replace the ~$14 set (FEL-PRO VS50304R valve cover gasket set $13.94, rockauto.com).

Now if the oil is coming from between the cylinder head and cylinder block, then the head gasket is leaking.

That said, oil does flow around and can seem to come from one place that isn't leaking.