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Hi All,
Yes, I agree with Art and CB for blow by being from one cylinder or more.
I have diagnosed another engine doing the same thing.
This is a story all to itself. Might be a bit long but it's a cheap read! (:-)
I have a sister-in-law with an near original, '73 VW Bug.
The Original engine was replaced with another engine made of VW only internal parts engine. I question this statement but she is sticking to it.
It's a remanufactured unit from someplace unknown to me.
She had the whole engine bay upgraded with chrome goodies. It even got a trick "see through" distributor cap.
This engine uses the same Bosch style cap that we have on the 240's. I think this was a big mistake to do all of this car but it's her car!
I can only guess what she spent to have this done by a local "Dunes" boy who has a reputation of being good at building up VW's.
Now, she has trouble with valve cover leaking on its right side two cylinders.
She has driven the engine about 3-4 k over about two years and she thinks the warranty is up on the engine.
The young mechanic supposedly moved 50 miles away and she cannot seem to get in touch with him through past resources. I cannot "call it" to what's up with that?
So, she found two other mechanics to try to fix it.
Her first fellow, thinks there are issues with the engine but doesn't want to work on it. It's Not his thing to make money on as he does service work.
He said he will change the oil for her though.
He has her using some green colored oil. Says it's high performance, high in zinc phosphate. Recommend because of the engine's valve train.
To me, the stuff doesn't even have a petroleum institute seal on the bottle or any S.A.E. rating of SH,J, N, nothing but she has a case of it on her shelf!
Truly a Jack's Boot Leg oil IMO.
So this next guy, she finds, changes a valve cover gasket and puts on a breather kit. This is a rectangular aluminum can with hoses going down to both valve covers. The top of the can has its lid spaced open and foam rubber for the gases to breathe out through.
He puts on that $140 box and told her she needs it or the engine will overheat. HE DIDN'T ASK FIRST!
She asked why as the engine never needed one before. He said that its not the same engine as before and its air filter setup is gone.
So there she stood. He charged her about $600 to do that and adjust the timing and the idle mixture or speed.
There has been No more blowing valve cover seals, but now, oil vapors are showing up all over the engine area.
She is now saying she was not happy with the guys work and will not even go back to talk to him! When I looked in there, I immediately saw the clear distributor cap was gone!
She was not aware of that too!
Nothing on the billing about any tune up parts either. Adjusted timing, idle mixture, gasket and the box. This was when she shared the billing information with me and I cringed.
After me, she later ran into a friend, that is in a local VW club. She told him what she had done. He knows and has seen the guy occasionally in the club and wanted to see the receipt.
After looking at the bill, He said that was some expensive screw turning!
He recommended her to file complaints against with some BBB, Yelp and a mechanic's organization.
Now that business or mechanic, that did the work, wants to give her a $1,000 to remove her complaints against him including Yelp! She's thinking on it.
Not long ago I got under the hood for her. I found oil literally soaking the new "tiny chrome" air cleaner inside and out.
The box added on had one hose totally kinked closed to the left valve cover.
The box has three connectors but he only used two. No way for the box to drain to anyplace. The oil in it is milky and this engine is air cooled.
So, in reading up about breather box, the box itself is suppose to be mounted as high above the engine as one can get it. It's mounted on the left side down low in line with the tail lights.
I moved it up and put a elbow in that left hose to the valve cover.
The third connector I have no idea where it can connect it. I think I will have to "Y" it into the filler pipe hose that goes up to the air cleaner?
I talked her into buying back an original air filter box so there is a separate void for crankcase vapors below the air filter off to one side.
This was the very thing done on my '74 Ford truck too. It sells a whole lot more air filters. Smart of that early smog engineering!
It presently gets less oil up there but still looks to be too much to me.
I have kept checking on the progress, if any? I'm still not happy with seeing an anti-rust coating around in the engine bay!
I decided that her oil change mechanic might be on to something so I pulled the plugs and did a compession check.
Three out of four @175 psi. Number one cylinder @100 psi, whoops! Did a double check, yep! I put oil in the cylinder, it jumped up to 170 psi. Bad news, Blow by!
I put carb cleaner into the cylinder and let it soak. I added Marvel Mystery Oil and let it sit for a few hours while turning the engine back and forth.
Checked the cylinder again and got the same results. A waste of time since I knew the engine is newly rebuilt but when desperate you do what you do!
I suspect it's more of one collapsed compression ring, due to losing it own spring tension. Maybe the cylinder got over heated?
I don't want to say broken ring as it's not smoking oil.
One or more broken compression rings normally will allow oil burning or for sure broken oil ring will. The three ring together must be scraping oil back down the wall. Trying cleaners did nothing like it should have with gummy rings.
The engine runs great and smooth so under cranking speed it leaks and when driven under higher revolutions the blow by builds up. The green oil is showing more milky moisture than it should. Maybe from her short in town runs
I got to read up on its "air cooling thermostat" to see how it works. I suspect it's missing under all that chrome tin ware.
This car is 600 miles from my car lift, at my other home or I would pull the head and jug to replace the rings for her.
Until the a ring breaks, I told her to drive it. She just runs around in town with its new paint job, chromed out engine bay but cheap-O VW original interior that truly sucks! Sad, for the money she has in it too, IMHO. Love is love?
So to H2oman, you have a consensus of three posters.
Do what I did and do a compression test. You might get the surprise answer I got!
You might try Rislone in your oil.
Some people like Marvel Mystery Oil. Both are added as a oil detergent for gummy rings or sticky valve guides.
How many miles are on your engine might be a deciding factor.
Having oil vapors pushed that high up, in this style engine, there will have to an explanation for the question of oil in the air cleaner box.
Hot vaporous vapors are all that is suppose to be sucked towards the air cleaner. Oil Droplets are suppose to be to heavy to rise through screens and baffles.
I even tried a copper mesh scrubbing pad in the crankcase vapor path. I got it from the grocery store.
I put it in the VW's oil filler pipe to create a grid to condense vapors onto. I'm still watching that experiment. (?)
Phil
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