issues with oil!

[pooleo8]

every now and then you can smell oil in the exhaust. Oil never shows on the dip stick. I can do a fresh oil change, and the dip stick does not read! There is oil on the sides, but not like it should be. Last winter I had some milking on the oil cap. It has since gone away. The mechanical oil gauge I installed shows 60 (warm, idle) and runs about 75-80 at hwy speeds. Yesterday, it dropped to 40 at idle, 60 at hwy speeds. I put 2 qts. in. Now, back to 60 idle, 75-80 at hwy.

What the heck is going on here? Never had any overheating issues, plugs looked good when I changed them (not oil soaked) No smoke out the pipe.

Is this the "eats 3 qtz inbetween oil changes" thing or something more?

 

[SkyJumper]

If you bought this used, you may have a improper dip stick out of some other type of vehicle. Or you are not properly seating the dip stick completely when reinserting it. If you burning it you would see grayish smoke and you need to make sure you are not over-filling it and could possibly blow out seals. Milky oil does not go away on its own. The issue remains regardless of oil changes and will get worse if you do not properly diagnose the issue. If all I mentioned is not an issue, then you should not be adding oil like you say you are. What does your antifreeze look like? Do you see oil floating? And when was the last oil change and the last time you saw milky oil?

 

[Thermo]

pooleo8, how many quarts of oil are you adding when you do an oil change? Just asking to make sure the correct amount of oil is being added. If you bought the truck used, are you sure that the correct dip stick is in the truck? Each motor size has a different length dipstick. So, that could also lead to some error.

With the catalytic converters, the days of blue smoke are not gone ,but you have to be burning some serious oil to get blue out the tail pipes now. So, you can't use that to judge things any more. The best check would be to do a compression check of the cylinders and see if you have a cylinder that is reading lower than the rest. That would tell you if you have a leaking valve seal or a ring that for some reason is starting to fail. Once you narrow it down to a cylinder, you can get an adapter to pressurize the cylinder to about 90 psi (requires both valves shut) and then you can listen to the exhaust, intake, and oil cap openings and see if you can hear any air. If you hear air, then that is where you leak is.

 

[pooleo8]

I've been around motors long enough to know the signs of a blown HG or bad head. Coolant is fine. Resivour doest have any oily substance either.

As for oil, 7 qts. I have added another oil cooler and the manual oil line for the guage. So it may be a little overfull, but not enough I think to cause problems.

There is ZERO blowby.

Last year I did notice that the bottom line to the intake had a very small amount of oil in it. I mean tiny, like a sepage.

Today, the smell of oil was BAD, I mean bad enough I had to pull her over. I popped the hood and on the drivers side firewall was oil spatter. I thought perhaps the oil line to the gauge had rubbed a hole, not the case. I checked hoses and the like around the area. Nothing.

Then, I looked at the frame behind the wheel, ton of oil on the frame. Upon further inspection, it appears as if the valve cover gasket is shot and is leaking at about the middle of the head, onto the exhaust manifold. I think the fan is blowing leaking oil from he gasket and is blowing up on the firewall, leaking on the manifold and this is causing the burning.

 

[pooleo8]

the dipstick I think is the right one, its got to be all of 30" or so! thing is huge!

 

[jrjr]

I'm not impressed with my dipstick at all in my 97, Its round and flimsy with a larger flat area to read the oil level. The oil level reading varies drastically from one side to the other..... very weird.