So my brother just told me that when he drives his dx civic that there is a clowd of white with bluish tint trailing him. So I think, ok its burning oil. Might be his piston rings. So I take my compression checker to his house. I pull out the first spark plug wire and it has oil on the end. I thought uh oh thats not too good. Then the second has the same. The third was dry, but the fourth had oil on it too but the electrode wasnt coated.. I stick my spark plug wrench down there and i can just tell it hit a small puddle of oil. So I take out the first spark plug and it is just covered in oil threads and all. I take out the second and it was the same. The third once again seemed to be the only one not covered in oil but it was black so it might also be running rich. The fourth was also covered in oil.

Now Im thinking it might be the valve cover gasket leaking down the oil. I do a compression check on number one and it reads out 175. Number two 175. Number 3 (the onle with no oil on it but black electrode) about 145. And number four 175. I was a bit baffled by this because it looked like he might only be running on one cylinder by how the plugs looked. I thought maybe sinced the oil was going down into the cylinder it might be sealing the rings which would bring up the compression. So I smelled his oil to see if any gas was in it and it looked and smelled like oil, I smelled it because most of the time if the rings are shot gas might make it past the rings and into the oil. My brother thinks its his head gasket but I havent had the chance to get my block tester to his place to see if its leaking compression into the cooling system. No oil seems to be in his coolent but his coolent was low. So im not too sure what is wrong with his car right now. You have any ideas?

 

white with bluish tint sounds like a headgasket. but the compression test doesn't confirm it..

valve guide seals have also been known to fail in higher mileage engines, which would cause oil to leak into the cylinders. which would explain it all except compression.

the spark plug tubes have rubber o rings between the valve cover and head, so if they are in bad shape, it will cause oil to leak on to the top of the spark plug, but may not be responsible for the smoking.. just oily spark plugs.

that 145 cylinder is really interesting.. no oil but low compression.

the car wont run on one cylinder. it can run down one, but not down 3..

sorry this is just stream of conscious.

if nothing else a free bump, but i would have to say that valve guide seals are the main culprit, and the 145 cylinder is on its way out from some other cause, possibly old age.. either way, sounds like ZC time

 

With the cyclinder(s) that has oil in there, it's like doing a wet compression test, results will be higher compression to determined if piston rings are bad or not. In this case, you are doing the wrong test. More appropiate test would be the cyclinder leakage test if you can gain access to compressed air.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sanimalp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">white with bluish tint sounds like a headgasket. but the compression test doesn't confirm it..

valve guide seals have also been known to fail in higher mileage engines, which would cause oil to leak into the cylinders. which would explain it all except compression.

the spark plug tubes have rubber o rings between the valve cover and head, so if they are in bad shape, it will cause oil to leak on to the top of the spark plug, but may not be responsible for the smoking.. just oily spark plugs.

that 145 cylinder is really interesting.. no oil but low compression.

the car wont run on one cylinder. it can run down one, but not down 3..

sorry this is just stream of conscious.

if nothing else a free bump, but i would have to say that valve guide seals are the main culprit, and the 145 cylinder is on its way out from some other cause, possibly old age.. either way, sounds like ZC time </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, its an interesting problem/s. It seems he may have more than one problem. I did think about the valve seals leaking down into the chambers, which would make the tips oily. And Im thinking it may be the valve cover gaskets as well. I will be using a block tester next time I can go look at it to see if he is leaking compression into his cooling system. That would tell me if his head gasket was messed up or if his block is cracked. I would hope its the head gasket.

I didnt think it would run either. But he said he started it up a week before. Maybe they got coated while it sat for that time, but damn, I wish i would have taken a picture of them. Holy crap they were COVERED in oil. It looked like he dropped the spark plugs in a jug of oil then put them in.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by J_CRX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">With the cyclinder(s) that has oil in there, it's like doing a wet compression test, results will be higher compression to determined if piston rings are bad or not. In this case, you are doing the wrong test. More appropiate test would be the cyclinder leakage test if you can gain access to compressed air.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, I know it wouldnt really diagnose anything once I saw all the oil. I do have access to compressed ait, but its a matter of getting his car to where I have it at. He doesnt want to drive it and risk messing anything more up in the state its in right now. So Im trying to bring tools to him to try and see if I can find out what the problem is. I might be able to tow it the garage at my school to work on it there, but I have too many projects as it is.

 

i could, but im quite broke