burning oil?

[treed2@u.washington.edu (T. Reed)]

I don't normally reply to my old posts but I just wanted to follow up- I
replaced the water pump and thermostat today. This time I used a stock
87C thermostat instead of the super-low 71C. The car actually warms up to
normal temp (needle at the LED) now, and rather quickly (like it used to).
It's nice to have heat again!!

Anyway, I haven't driven it enough to know about oil consumption, but I
can say that the engine seems to make a lot more power now that it warms
up all the way. Kinda weird, actually. It was raining out and I got tire
spin at WOT in 3rd gear, while I normally get it only sometimes and only
in 2nd when the road is wet. I also get much better throttle response
especially at low rpms now. Maybe its my imagination but the engine seems
a lot happier when its is allowed to warm up normally.

My vote is for the stock thermostat, but if you're gonna go low temp get
something less radical than 71C.

On a side note, my water pump stopped squeaking but now I have a new
squeak and it appears to be the crank pulley rubbing on something. AGAIN.
Arrgh.. I loathe having a car with squeaking belts - it makes you look
like an idiot that can't maintain a car properly.

-Toby

BTW I'd still like it if someone could tell me where to get a compression
tester that will work with the 16v head.

On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, T. Reed wrote:

> Okay, so last weekend I checked my oil level and was mortified that it was
> as low as it was (about 2mm below the cross hatch pattern on the
> dipstick). I filled it up and then I checked it again this weekend and it
> has dropped again (not as much, since I haven't driven it as much, duh).
> I'm not leaking oil, so it appears that I'm burning it (i did notice that
> I'm making a little more smoke lately). Slowly- my suspicion is about a
> 1/2 cup every 100 miles.
>
> This is bad and makes me unhappy because my 1.8 16v never burned any oil -
> in 3000 miles the dipstick would read the same as it did when I filled it
> up. The 2.0 bottom end I put in looked beautiful and while I never checked
> the compression myself (where can you buy a compression tester that will
> work with a 16v's deep spark plug wells?) the P.O. told me it was good
> (190 x 4 or 210 x 4), can't remember). The cylinder walls looked
> excellent, and I was too cheap to buy rings and rebuild the whole thing.
>
> My gut feeling is that its not rings, because why would they go bad so
> quickly? Also my engine has just as much power as it did the day I put it
> in, so I'm feeling like this isn't a compression problem.
>
> So what else leads to burning oil - bad valve seals or valve guides or
> sth, right? Thats a real possibility since I did some clean-up porting on
> the head when it was off and although I used compressed air to blow the
> metal chips out very carefully, some of them could have gotten jammed in
> there and wore the things to the point where they leak..
>
> That was my theory until today when it occurred to me that when I did the
> engine swap they gave me a 71 C (super low temp) thermostat instead of the
> standard thermo I asked for. I've been driving the car with it out of
> laziness (don't want to bother draining the coolant just to change it) but
> the side effect is that the car never warms up. It always stays very very
> cold, in fact my heat barely works at full blast after 1/2 hour of
> driving. The only time the car warms up is if its been taken for a hard
> drive and then I stop and idle it for 20 minutes. Then it will come up to
> what I consider "normal" operating temperature - the water temp needle at
> the LED on the gauge.
>
> Anyway.. it occured to me today that if the car is never warming up, maybe
> the rings/pistons aren't expanding and sealing properly.. thereby allowing
> oil past (and/or wearing out the rings prematurely - wouldn't that be
> stupid!)
>
> What do you guys think? I bought a water pump (squeak squeak squeak) and
> standard temp thermo from Mark @ Adriondack last night and it should be
> here in about a week so we'll find out if it stops consuming so much oil
> after that, I guess. But in the mean time.. should I be reading up on
> valve seals and what kind of a job that is or do you think my theory has
> any validity?
>
> -Toby
>