[bob9909]

This has got me a little worried :S

I started up the car this morning playing around with the choke and idle, when I noticed the check oil light intermittently flashing on and off. I only filled it up a month ago, with some pretty expensive oil. Pulled the rocker cover off yesterday to get an idea of how to adjust the tappets, seemed to be plenty of oil around.

Checked the dipstick after it had been running for a couple of minutes (also after letting it cool down), there was oil on it but after cleaning it off and re inserting it, nothing, it was dry as a bone :S

There was a little oil around the oil drain nut, but not very much and there were no oil patches under the car. Where did it all go? wft?

[tanshi]

im gonna go with burning it.

[bob9909]

:S

[tonyevans]

Sorry to say If it is not leaking it Then it's eating it.

[Moph]

What grade was the oil that you had in it? And when was the engine last rebuilt? If you're running some expensive fully synthetic 0W-30 or similar in an old engine then you'd expect it to burn through it pretty quick. A semi-synthetic 15W-40 or similar would be better for an older engine.

[bob9909]

I think it was a semi-synthetic 20w-50
If it was burning it wouldn't it be blowing lots of smoke?

[sierrajim]

How many K's has it done since the last service?

[royce]

did you fill it to full properly a month ago?

its not a check oil level light either, its low oil pressure and it coming on on a running engine is very bad!

[tonyevans]

bob9909 wrote:

I think it was a semi-synthetic 20w-50
If it was burning it wouldn't it be blowing lots of smoke?

I had an Econovan that burned a litre every 300K with no smoke - When I pulled it down number one cylinder had no rings left and holes down the side of the pistons - it eventually clogged the air cleaner with oil through the Crankcase breather.

Ran real well though did not like to idle.

[bob9909]

Around a month ago when I first started driving it I changed the oil, oil filter and air filter. Plugs and leads were all good. I Then rebuilt the carby as it seemed lacking in power, put it back in and got it working again.

Been running pretty good since, been having a few start up issues with the choke that I have still been playing with (only time it ever blew smoke was on start up).

I played around with the timing but due to lots of engine noise which I now think are the tappets I ended up setting it back to standard timing.

The other day we found one of the leads (only one) badly corroded and after looking at it we couldn't get it to work again and ended up driving home a decent way on only 3 cylinders :S

I have now replaced the dizzy cap, the lead and the spark plug. Took it for a drive yesterday and drove well.

It was only this morning when playing with the choke that I noticed the oil light coming on, but it doesn't stay on, just flashes on for a split second.

That is pretty much everything I have done and all the problems I have had since I started driving it around a month ago.

EDIT: we are talking like a 1000ks max since I put the oil in. And the idle has been all over the place in that time, after putting the carby back in I had to mess with the choke and idle screws, got it good, then a week or two later it starts playing up again (idle low, or not at all, blowing smoke etc)

EDIT2: Is my only option to fix this going to be to rebuild the engine? will that fix it? is there any tests I can do to find the actual cause before pulling it down?

Cheers

[jdk81]

how much oil did you put in it when you filled it?

Try a compression test.
Check your spark plugs, see if any are fouled considerably more than the others.

[Mike57]

I would suggest filling it with oil again and monitoring it like every day or every 100km to see whats going on. That is if there is no sign of a fouled plug or other problem to suggest a crook cylinder. Maybe it was not properly filled last time?

[bob9909]

I don't know exactly how much I put in, can't remember to be honest but I guess it was like 4L as I had a little left over out of a 5L bottle

I've been meaning to do another compression test and record the numbers cos we did a quick one a while ago at a friends place and I can't remember the exact number only that they were low, around the 90's but I cant remember the units, they were all pretty similar.

My number one plug was pretty stuffed up, after driving home on 3 cylinders, but don't know how long that was building up, cos when I checked them around a month ago, they were all good.

[ajsr]

check it every week for a few weeks and measure how much you need to put in each time

[bob9909]

Ok, thanks for the advice all, I will do what you recommend ajsr and keep a close eye on it over the next few weeks, with the amount of oil and km's traveled. I will also look into getting ready to rebuild it.

You have all been so helpful with all my dumb questions these last few weeks (and hopefully in the weeks to come as well), if we ever have a meet up I can get to I'll buy you all a beer

[ajsr]

bob9909 wrote:

Ok, thanks for the advice all, I will do what you recommend ajsr and keep a close eye on it over the next few weeks, with the amount of oil and km's traveled. I will also look into getting ready to rebuild it.

You have all been so helpful with all my dumb questions these last few weeks (and hopefully in the weeks to come as well), if we ever have a meet up I can get to I'll buy you all a beer

you may find if its not really blowing smoke you could drive it like that for years if you look after it and keep good oil up to it.
oil is a lot cheaper than an engine

one other question???
did you check the oil level after you fitted the new oil filter and started it for the first time, after the oil change???
the reason I ask is the filter would have to hold 400ml of oil or so and that may go part way to explaning your missing oil.

did you check the level both times on flat ground? see where I'm going with this

I have a farmer friend that has a 2.8 diesel hilux with massive kms on it, now this motor runs fine still with good power but burns at least a litre of oil every 3 weeks, its done so for around 2 years and is still happy and gets used daily.

I'd wait and see, but make sure you check it weekly and on level ground and keep track of oil usage, then you can make an educated decision on how bad it really is

[jimny06]

what oil do they recommend in the jimnys/sierras?