mmmmm white oil

brendan
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mmmmm white oil

Post by brendan »

driving to work today the car lost a cylinder while sitting at the lights, just thinking nothing of it i gave the car a rev and all four come on nice but i notice a big cloud of white smoke behind me, by the time i got the car to work 3km's down the road the temp was just of red and the car was running like a dog. turn it off and did the usally checks and found my oil to be white. thinking it was the head gasket i removed the head and found that the gasket looks fine and the head looks fine so now i am lost?
i remember reading in other forum that the car cracks the head and just wondering if there is a certain spot it cracks and wether this can be seen by the eye?
i think i am coming to the end of the rope with this car, 6 weeks ago i blew the gearbox, after finally getting another one 2 weeks later the engine kicks it in. Engine was rebuilt 6months ago with forge pistons and looking in the bore i can c scoring in all four cylinders and in no2 cylinder there is one deep line all the way up the bore so i will seeing the engine place on monday and hope they will warrent it.
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wedgenut
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Post by wedgenut »

and in no2 cylinder there is one deep line all the way up the bore so i will seeing the engine place on monday and hope they will warrent it.
That deep line wouldn't be a crack in the bore would it? For the oil to emulsify it means water is getting into the oil, was there any oil in the water? Often a crack associated with the block will produce oily water as well as watery oil. If the water is clean then it is likely it is a crack in the head that opens when it gets hot. If water is getting into the cylinder bores then the head surfaces would normally have a washed appearance. ie no carbon build up. Often a crack will allow compression gases to not only heat the water excessively it will also pressurise the cooling system to the degree it blows out of the cap into the overflow bottle and ultimately on to the street, so it overheats due to high temperature gas in the cooling system and lack of water. When it cools down it can suck back water through the crack into the bores and it can seep past the rings into the sump.
Either way I would be having full and frank discussions with the engine rebuilder as scored bores after only six months is a bit of a concern. I've stripped engines with 300,000 k's on the clock and not found scoring worth mentioning. Worn yes, scored no. Summat aint right. If you have the head off anyway take it to your engine rebuilder and get him to do a crack test on it then you will know one way or another if it is a head problem or not. I have heard of some heads becoming a bit soft and porous in the alloy and a hot oil bath pressure test is usually the only way to establish that. If your rebuilder is more than 19 years old and has any nous he will help you get to the root of the problem pretty quickly.
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brendan
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Post by brendan »

okay guys really need your help, i have just left the scores in the bore as the rebuilder said that it was because i over reved it. i have put the engine back together with a new head gasket and had the head crack and pressure tested, the engine is all back together but i am still getting water in my oil???? I have changed turbos just in case it was that, the engine is missing in idle but if you rev it up it comes back on all four cylinders so i suspect water is getting into the combustion cycle, dont know which cylinder cause you can pull the plugs of all four cylinders and it runs shit? I tries as a last effort today to use chemi weld to fix it but it made no different. I have talked to alot of mechanics and the engine rebuilder and they all say that a cracked block is very rare? but it is a piazza so anything is possible.
please help
cheers Brendan
(if anybody has a piazza to sell i would like another one right now to make one good one)
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Post by wedgenut »

All sounds a bit strange, if you don't have a crack in the block and no cracks in the head and it isn't the turbo you have very few options left. Water in the combustion cycle would normally have bubbles appearing in the radiator and if you put the cap on it will over pressurise the radiator and blow water into the overflow tank. You don't say if you had the inlet manifold checked, the heater system feeds back through that and there is a water port between the inlet throats on the head and while that MAY upsite idle and clear when you rev it you would see the evidence by a very clean spark plug on one cylinder compared to the others and it would boil off with combustion and is unlikely to get into the oil while running but may seep in after stopping and cool down. If you get an air leakage test done on each cylinder that would show up in the radiator as bubbles in the water as well. You got a weird one all right. One of the guys over here has a spare complete engine but freight would cost a bit I'm guessing. I can sell you a complete car but again you would need lots of stamps and the beaurocrats wouldn't let you import a complete car anyway I don't think.

When you took the head off were any of the combustion chambers clean and carbon free or were they all identical?
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Post by Bugle »

If it were a crack there'd be oil getting into the coolant aswell wouldn't there?

That inlet manifold water port leak sounds plausible.. At idle it'd be sucking a bit of water down with the vacuum and maybe not so much on revving when it gets boost?
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Post by Rodeobob »

Name and shame the engine builder.


What rings did he use in the motor???



Whats it bored out to????


How carefully was the head checked for cracks??? Did they do a hardness test on it.


Coolant system pressure test with the sump empty might be an idea.

Leave it sit for a day or two nad rim the plugs out. See which ones rusty, might give a general idea of where to be looking.

Might be a good excuse to go 2.3 or 2.6L


Bob.

Bob.
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Post by Bugle »

Rodeobob wrote:Name and shame the engine builder.
Too bad Naomis not on today tonight anymore, she loves a good naming and shaming.

Yeah get a 4ZD1 according to the rules you can put one in without needing engineering because it's less than 15% more displacement than a 4ZC1
brendan
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Post by brendan »

when i had the engine apart no1 cylinder was cleaner then all the rest and there was no carbon on the piston.
Worked on the car again today, disconnected the water to the throttle body and ran it, oil still going white and car is missing but if you rev it up for a little while it comes good and runs smooth for a minute or so and then returns to a miss. also when you first start the car it runs smooth for around 15sec then starts to miss. There are no bubbles in the radiator but it is losing water???
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Post by wedgenut »

Well it sounds like the problem was in No1 cylinder doesn't it? Certainly the clean washed appearance is water in the cylinder. How it gets in is the question. Assuming it is still the same problem you should see evidence on the plug now again as being cleaner than the rest. If that is the case and the head HAS been properly tested, 4zc1 heads were notorious for going soft and porous, then it is either through the gasket or crack in the block. Assuming it was a crack then it sort of has to be low in the cylinder or you would get bubbles in the water and probably oil as well if it was high enough to be under compression on the firing stroke. For water to get into the oil through the head gasket it needs to find its way from a water port to an oil port and this is not common. It is more common to blow between cylinders and that doesn't put water in the oil.

I'll say it again, do a leak down test. Get a compressor and a spark plug adaptor air fitting. Put the cylinder on compression stroke first at top dead centre, valves closed, in first gear with handbrake on to prevent engine turning and stick 120 psi down its throat. Remove the cam cover and watch for bubbles in the oil valley under the camshaft and listen for hissing noises at the dipstick tube, with bad cracks I've seen the dipstick jump up in its tube closely followed by a squirt of oil as the sump pressurises. Look in the radiator for bubbles as well but bear in mind it may take a few minutes for them to find their way in to the radiator so give it time.

If you don't get a result try again with the cylinder at bottom dead centre to check for a low down crack. You will need to back off the valve adjustment all the way to keep the valves closed. If they don't close completely rotate the crank a little until they are closed. Won't be true bottom dead centre but will still be low in the stroke.

All tests should be done with a warm engine.

If you don't solve it do what was suggested earlier and grab 2.3 donkey and be done with it.

If your engine recon man was up with the play he could do leak down tests for you.
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Post by Rodeobob »

wedgenut wrote:If your engine recon man was up with the play he could do leak down tests for you.

Yeah i rekon you need to make more noise.


Hows my mate. Got a BMW bike, one of those desert racer things. Hes done heaps o miles on it. It was running crap, put it into BMW and they gave it back to him not running at all. Charged him $200 and told him he needed to buy a new $1600 wiring loom as it was faulty.


How dodgy is that.



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Post by wedgenut »

Hows my mate. Got a BMW bike, one of those desert racer things. Hes done heaps o miles on it. It was running crap, put it into BMW and they gave it back to him not running at all. Charged him $200 and told him he needed to buy a new $1600 wiring loom as it was faulty.
WHAT THEY NEGLECTED TO MENTION WAS THAT THE APPRENTICE PLUGGED THE COMPUTER ANALYSER CABLE IN BACKWARDS AND FRIED THE LOOM.

I would be chucking bricks through their mirror glass windows for a month
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Post by Rodeobob »

You seirous??? Can that be done???


Bob.
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Post by wedgenut »

I read the instructions on one of those computerised analysers once and it was full of dire warnings about making connections in the right order and all had to made with battery disconnected and not re connected until all were hooked up so you never know, they aint gonna admit anything
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Post by graham »

Rodeobob wrote:
wedgenut wrote:If your engine recon man was up with the play he could do leak down tests for you.

Yeah i rekon you need to make more noise.


Hows my mate. Got a BMW bike, one of those desert racer things. Hes done heaps o miles on it. It was running crap, put it into BMW and they gave it back to him not running at all. Charged him $200 and told him he needed to buy a new $1600 wiring loom as it was faulty.


How dodgy is that.



Bob.
a guy i know has a bmw bike 1200 gs off road adventure/tourer he stuck it into the bmw agent for a service because no one else would touch it , the basic interim service cost him £600.00 thats u.k pounds not dollars and that was just a basic service nothing wrong with it, i have decide that bmw are robbing barstewards
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Post by Rodeobob »

graham wrote: a guy i know has a bmw bike 1200 gs off road adventure/tourer he stuck it into the bmw agent for a service because no one else would touch it , the basic interim service cost him £600.00 thats u.k pounds not dollars and that was just a basic service nothing wrong with it, i have decide that bmw are robbing barstewards
The bike came back from the UK with my mate. This guy you talk of isnt 7 foot tall and nearly as wide is he???

I told him serves you right from buying an EFI bike and treating it like a go anywhere two stroke farm bike.

Heres some of his antics
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=bushboy100


Cheers, Bob.
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