my 1950 fleetline is using a crazy amount of oil, around a quart every 30 miles. Did a compression check on it and getting around 100 psi on all cylinders. Replaced valve seals, can't find any major leaks that would account for this amount of oil loss. I haven't had the car that long and was told by the previous owner that the engine had been rebuilt but sat for years right after. In the time I've owned it I've only put probably 70-100 miles on it Is it possible that the oil rings are not seated? Just seems like an incredible amount of oil usage!!! Any suggestions/advice is greatly appreciated!! Thanks
No smoke ? 30 miles a qt. should leave a smoke screen bad enough to get you pulled over ... Dual action fuel pump ? They can rupture and suck oil. May have chrome rings, which used to give problems to some folks. If you want to seat 'em the old way, fill it back up with oil ... find a stretch of road with very little traffic, and in high gear at 25 MPH, floor it to 60. Slow to 25 and do it again ... repeat 10 times. Maybe show us some pictures - we sometimes can see things out of whack ....
Check the crankcase venting and the road draft tube. Also drop the inspection cover under the bellhousing.
I bought a 53 ranch wagon that had sat for 10 years drove it from Tn to Fl and used 8 qts of oil. The more I drove it the better it ran. It eventually got down to a qt. every 800 miles. The oil rings are either installed wrong or stuck. Try running some tranny fluid in your oil and do a break in procedure were you load the rings if that don't work. Drop the pan ,pull the head and pull the pistons out and check the rings. You may have to hone the block and put in a set of cast iron quick seater rings. You can do it without pulling the engine. Have done many ring jobs on old inline Chevy 6's in the car. Just make sure the ridge is not too big on the top.
If and only if it is an oil ring or any ring for that matter that has not seated give it the bon ami treatment. but first do a search here on the Hamb.
Thanks for the response! It's got s new fuel pump, smokes a little from the draft tube and from exhaust pipe after acceleration. I've attached a few pictures of the engine, draft tube and exhaust, Thanks again for the reply
That's not a little, that's a lot. I'm with 302GMC on that one, 30 miles to a quart being burned should look like a mosquito fogger going down the road. So much smoke you are pissing off the guys behind you. You might have to get someone to drive it while you follow it to see exactly how much smoke it does put out and when.
Getting smoke from the draft tube, And exhaust, thinking the last person that did a rebuild did something wrong?? Worse case, I'll take the engine apart this winter Thanks for the reply!!
Checked the inspection plate, no oil coming from there, getting smoke from the draft tube, if I remove the draft tube I can actually see specs of oil coming out the the hole that the draft tube sits in( not sure if that's normal) After shutting the engine off smoke comes from the vents on the valve cover, then again not sure if that's normal, Thanks for the response!!
It does seem to use a little less oil the more I run it and every time I check the spark plugs the look less black, I'll try the tranny fluid in the oil, worse case I'll replace the rings over the winter, thanks for the response!!
If you can put up with it, run it for a while. The rings may need more time to seat themselves. You mentioned it smokes on de-acceleration, which means high manifold vacuum. Pull the valve cover and see what you have for umbrella seals.
The "smoke" you're seeing from the draft tube isn't really smoke, like you'd see from burning oil. It's mostly a combination of unburned, vaporized fuel that's found its way past the rings during the compression stroke and any condensation that's gotten trapped in the crankcase and converted into steam as the engines gets to operating temperature. It's called blow-by and it's normal to a certain degree under certain circumstances. When the car is driven the draft tube should provide a slight vacuum to the crankcase and draw fresh air thru the engine thru the vent in the valve cover or the oil fill cap. This helps keep the fuel vapor and moisture from accumulating in the oil. On newer engines the PCV system performs the same job. But you've got my attention when you say you can see a bit of oil spray escaping the engine from the port for the draft tube. There should be some sort of a baffle to deflect oil splash from entering the draft tube. This baffle could either be just inside the engine where the draft tube is mounted or built onto the upper end of the draft tube where it enters the crankcase. Without the baffle in place the engine could easily go thru a quart of oil in 100 miles or less. And since the oil is being leaked and not burned, you won't see a big smoke cloud out of the tailpipe.
Thank you for the reply! It looks like there is a baffle inside the crankcase but there is a small gap you can see where oil gets past. looks like nothing inside the draft pipe not sure if there is supposed to have some sort of mesh or something to keep oil from leaking I've added a couple pictures, maybe this is contributing to my oil loss? Thanks!
Today's added info has me remembering the "just rebuilt" part ... years ago, if a car was for sale, it always had "just overhauled" or "new motor" in the ad. If it ran, but barely, it "needs tune-up". Your engine doesn't really have the appearance of having much done other than the Chevy orange paint. The accumulation of blowby sludge indicates high mileage. Eventually, it's going to have to be freshened or replaced.
If the missing oil was finding its way into the combustion chamber it would foul the plugs and smoke like a train out the exhaust. That's why I'm thinking the oil has found another escape route. And it's being kind of sneaky about it.
Yeah I kinda thought that too, The rebuilt engine part wasn't a big selling point to me. I didn't pay that much compared to other vehicles I was looking at that were much worse condition some not even having an engine to begin with,lol Thinking about trying to do a rebuild this winter
The plugs look better every time I check them, which makes me think it's burning less oil, but I think some the oil is leaking out somewhere and I just can't find it,
I think the draft tube has a cannister at the top of it that acts as a baffle/oil separator of sorts. The material in it was probably a coarse metal mesh like those pot scrubber pad thingys. It may be completely choked up with old oil deposits and sludge. Or it may have corroded and rotted away after 60 years of exposure to moisture and blow-by. Soak and flush the tube with solvent and make sure it isn't plugged up or heavily restricted. You probably won't be able to tell if the metal mesh stuff is still intact inside it or not. If the draft tube seems to have no flow restriction at all, you might want to try packing the opening of that cannister thing with a bit of metal mesh of some sort. Maybe one of those copper scrubbing pads or the mesh lint filter you can get for washing machines. You don't need to stuff as much of it in there as you can. Just tight enough to hold it in place inside the tube. You still need free air flow thru the tube. Make sure the breather in the oil fill cap isn't plugged up too. The more you drive it and get the oil up to temperature and circulating it may free the rings up and start behaving better.
My panel truck was atrocious. Anti-foulers on all 6 plugs. A trip to the beach and back, 20 miles total and I used 3 quarts in the process.
This is totally normal, you should even see a light film of oil on the valve cover itself near the vent slits. You might even try replacing the filler cap in the valve cover with a breather type cap. As a far as I know there was no wadding in the vent tube, I've had two of them and neither did. These motors tend to leak a lot. Might be a combination of worn motor and leaking motor. The side cover is very hard to seal properly. Obviously the oil pan gasket is a place to look for leaks, even the head gasket mating can ooze oil on these. What type of oil? I run 20w50 in my 216. Which is close to the factory 30w recommendation. If you have thinner you might consider replacing with thicker. Might be valve stem seals as well. There is not much oil up top on a 216, just a single drip line, but they did sell these special mushroom covers back in the day to slow oil consumption at the valves. They looked like a large saucer that you paced over the top of the spring, under the arm and it deflected the oil away from the stem. Not good for lubrication but good to keep oil out of the combustion chamber.
The Jalopy Journal
