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2,877 Posts
As always, advice appreciated. I’ll try not to ramble, but there’s a decent amount of info I want to convey in order to hopefully get some reasonable advice.
Car details:
Symptoms:
Some other background info:
Its had a long-standing oil leak from between gearbox and engine for years. Recently had a second hand g’box fitted and had the rear main seal done at the same time. I trust the garage that did the work and they say the old one was indeed knackered and needed replacing. Since replacing the box about 1k miles ago the bottom of the engine/g box area is wetter than ever and I come to an oil puddle the size of a 5p piece every morning. Its impossible to tell if the wetness on the box/bottom of engine is still coming from between the g’box and block , or from higher up and dripping down.
Recently during a spirited drive with mates, they warned me I was making occasional smoke clouds (blue smoke) during hard acceleration.
The plug electrodes look good, but there is a LOT of oil in the spark plug wells, and the plugs on cyl 1 &2 look particularly dirty on the plug body.
Oil consumption has been about 1L per 1000 km. Up until (today) I have been running the car on full synth 10w-40 oil. After reading about a bit, ive just done an oil change to 10w-60 FS today. Will see how that goes. I must stress that the car is always and consistently driven v. hard. Itll see the redline every time its driven, so I suppose I could have worn something out!
Ive questioned the usual things:
-Piston rings: Done a compression test today, results 160-155-152-151 psi. That seems OK? I know the rings can be badly matched on the TS from the factory, but surely this would show with poor compression.
-Stem seals: No blue smoke at all on idle or cold start.
-Head gasket. No oil or water mix and consistent compression test results.
-Rubber seal on top of engine (cant think of its name!). Replaced when new cams put in.
I appreciate this is a bit of a tough one, because there are potentially two problems. One to do with the RMS or other seal on end of the engine, and one potentially at the top of the engine.
Could the balance shaft seals be at fault?
By the by:
-Economy is great. 20mpg when caning it and 35-40 on a relaxed drive.
-Performance is spot on. Engine runs sweet apart from the oil loss. No funny noises or other worries.
-Exhaust is sooty and will blow some black (carbon I suppose) water droplets on cold start. Plenty of white condensation mist form the exhaust on cold mornings, but its done that since new!
I know this is a problem I wont fix myself. The plan is to arm myself with as much info as possible before shipping the car off to the garage that did the cams over the winter period for a definitive repair. The garage is at the other end of the country and I know if the head has to come off etc then it WILL be EXPENSIVE.
Forewarned is forearmed in this case I think.
Thanks all
Oil around top of sparkplug area. Worst around cyl 1:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/alexisbad/alfa romeo/DSC_0017_4.jpg
Cyl 1 plug. These are only 5k km old (6 months!).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/alexisbad/alfa romeo/DSC_0026_1.jpg
You can see the oil pooling here around the top of the plug wells. I am always v. careful when filling the oil, so its not a case of me spilling oil everywhere.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/alexisbad/alfa romeo/DSC_0019_4.jpg
Car details:
- 98 CF2 2.0TS
- 130k ish miles.
- Fast road cams and remap fitted 5k km ago.
- New spark plugs fitted at same time. Car does run somewhat rich at idle due to the cams.
Symptoms:
- Excessive oil usage
- Blue smoke from exhaust only during v. hard acceleration.
- Excessive oil around and in spark plug wells
- Significant oil leak causing wetness around end of engine block/gearbox seal
Some other background info:
Its had a long-standing oil leak from between gearbox and engine for years. Recently had a second hand g’box fitted and had the rear main seal done at the same time. I trust the garage that did the work and they say the old one was indeed knackered and needed replacing. Since replacing the box about 1k miles ago the bottom of the engine/g box area is wetter than ever and I come to an oil puddle the size of a 5p piece every morning. Its impossible to tell if the wetness on the box/bottom of engine is still coming from between the g’box and block , or from higher up and dripping down.
Recently during a spirited drive with mates, they warned me I was making occasional smoke clouds (blue smoke) during hard acceleration.
The plug electrodes look good, but there is a LOT of oil in the spark plug wells, and the plugs on cyl 1 &2 look particularly dirty on the plug body.
Oil consumption has been about 1L per 1000 km. Up until (today) I have been running the car on full synth 10w-40 oil. After reading about a bit, ive just done an oil change to 10w-60 FS today. Will see how that goes. I must stress that the car is always and consistently driven v. hard. Itll see the redline every time its driven, so I suppose I could have worn something out!
Ive questioned the usual things:
-Piston rings: Done a compression test today, results 160-155-152-151 psi. That seems OK? I know the rings can be badly matched on the TS from the factory, but surely this would show with poor compression.
-Stem seals: No blue smoke at all on idle or cold start.
-Head gasket. No oil or water mix and consistent compression test results.
-Rubber seal on top of engine (cant think of its name!). Replaced when new cams put in.
I appreciate this is a bit of a tough one, because there are potentially two problems. One to do with the RMS or other seal on end of the engine, and one potentially at the top of the engine.
Could the balance shaft seals be at fault?
By the by:
-Economy is great. 20mpg when caning it and 35-40 on a relaxed drive.
-Performance is spot on. Engine runs sweet apart from the oil loss. No funny noises or other worries.
-Exhaust is sooty and will blow some black (carbon I suppose) water droplets on cold start. Plenty of white condensation mist form the exhaust on cold mornings, but its done that since new!
I know this is a problem I wont fix myself. The plan is to arm myself with as much info as possible before shipping the car off to the garage that did the cams over the winter period for a definitive repair. The garage is at the other end of the country and I know if the head has to come off etc then it WILL be EXPENSIVE.
Thanks all
Oil around top of sparkplug area. Worst around cyl 1:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/alexisbad/alfa romeo/DSC_0017_4.jpg
Cyl 1 plug. These are only 5k km old (6 months!).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/alexisbad/alfa romeo/DSC_0026_1.jpg
You can see the oil pooling here around the top of the plug wells. I am always v. careful when filling the oil, so its not a case of me spilling oil everywhere.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/alexisbad/alfa romeo/DSC_0019_4.jpg