Engine Head Gasket Maybe?
 

Hi all, back again with another question for you Honda Know it alls!

So a few weeks ago I was in town and my car backfired and sputtered some, tried to stall, and I tapped the gas and it was fine again (full take of gas..) and I got it home.. Haven't been driving it much since because I found out that day that a wheel bearing is going bad on me so I'm trying to limit the out of town runs I do with it..

Anyways.. Since that day its been running kind of weird when I do run around in town with it, then just today I took it down a few blocks then back home... Getting up the hill it seemed to be lacking a bit of the normal oomf that it usually has goin up the hill to home, and when I put it in park and goosed the gas a little hit there was a weird whining noise under the hood, and some greyish smoke coming out of the exhaust... Might've just been cause it was cold or something because it didn't do it again a about an hour later when I went to show my dad...

Checked the oil, and while its not whitish or what I would necessarily call 'milky' its still pretty light brown and translucent after 2800 miles, defintely a helluva lot lighter than I've ever seen from 2800 mile oil...

Here's a pic (sorry it sucks..) of the dipstick from when I looked:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5izkgo036h...2017.58.14.jpg

It's also sounding much louder than it normally is, and there were even a couple times when it made loud pop noises, and some when it sounded like it wasn't firing on all 4 cylinders...

So, should I be concerned about my head gasket/engine blowing on me soon?

May have figured it out.. apparently my 'rebuilt engine' burns off or is leaking 4quarts of oil in 2800 miles...

Or I just got sold a lemon...

What makes you think it's burning that much oil that fast?
Oil burns blue, and it would be pretty hard to burn 4 quarts in 2800 miles. Your tailpipe and bumper would be soaked in oily residue. And with that much oil getting past the rings, I would think your motor would barely have any compression to run at all.

Check your plugs. See if they are fouled or covered in oily residue or something


After re-reading your original post, it seems like a timing problem. Your timing belt might have skipped a tooth. This would explain lack of power, it running very poorly, it seeming to not be running on all cylinders, and even the weird colored exhaust.

I was leaning more heavily on the 'leaking 4 quarts' part... I kid you not.. checked the thing today, nothing on the dipstick, and when I removed the cap I can see the valve springs and all that... Not a drop...

When I bought the thing they told me 'rebuilt from the pan up' well they obviously lied... :(

I know what burning oil looks, and smells like my dad had a little mazda truck that burned about a quart a month... smelled nasty and smoked blue like crazy.... and had the black tailgate spot, etc... but yeah... not the problem im having... I dunno when it ran out, but Im going to guess I'm really lucky I haven't blown a rod through the side of the block...

Is your driveway flooded in oil?

Your engine could also be burning oil through a faulty PCV valve. It could be stuck open, sucking oil right into the intake. This would burn a lot of oil without many symptoms.

If you did indeed blow a head gasket, take your radiator cap off. Is there some peanut butter looking stuff in there?

It's not the head gasket... radiator coolant is normal... (luckily..)

There have been alot of spots under my car in the past, but I chalked it up to the leaky rack & pinion... Could be some oil to maybe?

As for the pcv valve, would it cause it to burn off the entire 4 quarts since Mid October while only driving it 2800 total, and what symptoms would point to the pcv valve issue?

For the PCV valve issue...let me just tell you this

My friend has a 1994 Toyota Tercel. Supposed to be "Toyota quality", you know? But we're getting to the conclusion that this might not be such a gem of Toyota's.

This car had MAJOR issues, so we thought. Just as a note, this was one of like 6 cars they have, and only 3 drivers, so this car was only driven maybe 100 miles a week.

It seemed like every single time the oil was checked, it would be like 2 quarts low! In the course of 2 months or so, and maybe 1000 miles at most, this car went through ~6 quarts of oil.

It wasn't bellowing blue smoke, so we were stumped. The car only had 100k miles, so we didn't think it the rings could have been in that bad condition.
We looked all over for leaks, replaced a bunch of gaskets.

We eventually thought to replace the PCV valve. It immediately stopped burning oil. At idle (high vacuum), the PCV valve is supposed to be closed, but the valve had gone bad. So the valve was stuck open. It was constantly letting oil be sucked right into the intake. Since it was evenly distributed between all 4 cylinders, there wasn't that much blue smoke at any one time.

Oh... Guess I'll look into that then...<.<

Hopefully its not an expensive fix...<.<

PCV valve cost $2 for the Tercel. 30 seconds to replace.

yeah looked it up on O'Rielly Auto Parts... like $5 for the valve, and they suggest replacing the grommets which is like $6 or so... and I looked up a how to guide.. I guess its just pull the valve from the grommet on top of the valve cover, pull the other end from the hose, then replace it in reverse... one of the easier, and cheaper fixes on this thing...