Oil comsumption?

[joeyy]

I got an 87 Bii eddie bauer 2.9L and lately its been burning or leaking oil. ABout every 3 to 4 days i have to put at least 1/2 a quart in but it keeps getting worse. When I was driving on the freeway I could hear it gradually start clicking from lack of oil so I pulled over to put some oil in it and there was smoke coming from the header on the forward cylinder on the left bank looking at it from the front. There wasn't spilled oil on teh header it was coming from the gasket aroun dthe header next to the block. I know its also leaking oil but I don't know where from. Looks like the 2 metal lines next to the oil filter are completely covered in oil. Are those even for the oil or the transmission? It also looks like there might be oil coming out of the vavle covers. I have no idea if those gaskets have ever been replaced. How much are those gaskets and how hard is it to change them out roughly? When I finally got to walmart I bought a bottle of lucas oil treatment, Its helped a lot. The engine stop knocking/clicking and its seems to be doing fine now. Don't know for how long though. Also the oil filling cap has some kind of greenish foam in it? What's that mean, I hope its not an internal coolant leak. So I gues I'm asking 1) How hard is it to change the valve cover gaskets? 2) Whats the foam from? 3) Where is all my damn oil going and how can I fix the leaks? I dont have my cat on there anymore and my muffler fell off and I havent put it back on yet, I dont know if that would have anything to do with it burning/leaking oil. SO please any advice would be helpful. I dont want my engine to get messed up, I love my Bii and its my daily driver at that.

[oneway]

from what I've been reading - there is a plate in the engine somewhere that can sometimes let the coolant leak into the oil or vice versa. I'm sure there are other places as well. But I'm not to familiar with it. The foam could be what some call "milk shake" - I know when it happens in motorcycles, it's time to buy a new engine...not sure on these trucks though.

The valve cover gasket could be cork (cheaper) they tend to not last as long as the rubber ones. Get a rubber one. Mine was around $15 from Advanced Auto.

Midas (not sure if there is one near you) but they just quoted me at $450 to change the valve cover gasket which also includes a degreasing of the engine. (Kinda on the fence about that since I only got the truck for $685)

Where and when did you put in the Lucas oil treatment? How did it help you? Did you just pour it into the Engine Oil cap...did you do it after an oil change or when the truck was warmed up? I guess I could read the back of the bottle.

It seems our trucks may have a little bit in common lol...aside from the greenish oil and requiring oil every 3-4 days. I can just about go a month before my oil is low enough to trigger the check oil light and that's with everyday stop and go traffic driving.

[joeyy]

Sorry, I didn't see you replied back on this till just now. I just poured in the Lucas without changing the oil. Whole bottle straight into the engine. It was low on oil anyway. But i bought the rubber seals for about 13 bucks, not bad. Screw taking it somewhere, I like working on my own truck plus ai haven't gotten the money anyway to take it some where. I asked on here before how long it takes to replace thses seals and someone told me it only takes about an hour. my hardest part will be moving all the crap thats covering the valve covers. the AC pump, wires out the ass, hoses, you know the whole 9 yards.

I got a small engine knock that developed from when the oil ran really thin one time so it gets worse when the oil is low. I'd like ot try to fix the valves while I have the covers off to replace the seals. But I have no idea how to adjust them and need help. i don't want to go and make it worse cause I'm an idiot....


Does anyone have any advice for me how to adjust the valves or to at least check them? I'm going to be replacing the cover seals tomorrow (wednesday) and need to know before I mess something up. I have a repair manual and ill look in it to see if it says anything about it. But having some first hand experience from some of you guys would be really helpful.

I'll take some pics of what im doing while I'm doing it and post on here. I'm also going to post some before and after pics of my bronco from when i first got it to what i did to it today (some more add-ons) even though thats not really related to this topic.

[joeyy]

the first pic is an up close look at what the insides of the covers looked like, is this normal?

second pic is the whole cover, completely burnt black oil.

third pic is the right bank torn apart

fourth is the left bank torn apart

and the 5th is what it looked like before i started

[tekatlarge]

Looks pretty normal to me. Not excessively gunked up. Be sure to clean the gasket area on the head "Real Good"

[joeyy]

i cleaned her as best i could, but everything is back together now, i didnt put the AC pump back on cause it didnt work anyway and i took out the hoses for it, so they get out of my way for once